CLO name change

The name of Babson Euro CLO 2014-1 has been changed to Barings Euro CLO 2014-1. The move is effective from 13 June.

Europe

MDB Group (MeDirect) has recruited Michael Curtis as cio, responsible for core credit activities and spearheading the bank’s diversification into new product areas. Based in London, he reports to ceo Mark Watson. Curtis was previously portfolio manager and md at ICG, leading the CLO and loans business, and before that worked at 3i Debt Management, Alpstar Capital and CIBC World Markets.

HSBC has hired Peter Mansbridge to the role of director within its structured finance group. Mansbridge was previously a vp in the structured finance group at RBS.

Fraud charge settled

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has agreed to pay US$10.5m to affected customers and to pay penalties of approximately US$5.2m to settle US SEC charges that its employees misled customers into overpaying for RMBS. In its order, the SEC found that Merrill Lynch traders and salespeople convinced the bank’s customers to overpay for RMBS by deceiving them about the price Merrill Lynch paid to acquire the securities. According to the order, the bank failed to have compliance and surveillance procedures in place that were reasonably designed to prevent and detect such misconduct.

ILS

Leadenhall Capital Partners has hired George Cooper as a non-life investment analyst. He was previously at Scor as a catastrophe risk analyst.

North America

Federman Steifman has appointed John Nastasi as partner in its New York office. Nastasi concentrates his legal practice in commercial real estate, structured finance and workouts. He previously founded Nastasi Law Group, served as in-house counsel for the real estate group of the Lehman Brothers estate and worked at Fried Frank.

Greystone has named George Kenny md, institutional sales for its lending operations based in New York. In this newly-created role, Kenny will drive increased debt origination among institutional clients, reporting to Chip Hudson, head of production for conventional and affordable agency loans at Greystone. He joins from Starwood Property Trust, where he served as head of new business development for real estate investing and servicing. Prior to Starwood, he was head of Americas mortgage and securitised product sales at UBS, and also worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Braver Stern and Lord Abbett.

Katten Muchin Rosenman has hired Paul Kruger to the firm’s structured finance and securitisation practice in New York. Prior to joining Katten, Paul was based in New York, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Tokyo. He is admitted in New York and England and Wales and he has represented some of the world's leading financial institutions, private equity investors, sovereign wealth funds and corporations on transactions across the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Lowenstein Sandler has hired Ryan Wilson as a partner in the in its capital markets litigation and white collar criminal defense practices. Wilson was formerly an assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of New York and was a lead attorney in the prosecution of the world’s third-largest RMBS issuer/underwriter, resulting in a landmark settlement of over US$7bn.

NPL pool sold

MTGLQ Investors is the winning bidder in Fannie Mae’s latest non-performing loan sale, comprising approximately 9,800 loans totalling US$1.64bn in unpaid principal balance, divided among four pools. The cover bid was 81.48% of UPB (53.39% of BPO) for the four pools, which were purchased on an all-or-none basis. Meanwhile, bids are due for Fannie Mae's thirteenth community impact pool sale on 19 June and for its seventh reperforming loan sale on 10 July.