People moves and key promotions in securitisation

This week’s securitisation job swaps have seen Oaktree Capital Management announce the retirement of ceo Jay Wintrob and a succession plan that sees three senior executives stepping onto its executive committee. Elsewhere, Deutsche Bank has appointed a new CLO implementation head, while Moody’s welcomes back a structured finance professional after a two-and-a-half-year stint with BFF Banking. 

Oaktree ceo Wintrob will retire in the first quarter of next year to be replaced by global opportunities portfolio manager Robert O’Leary and head of performing credit Armen Panossian. As part of the succession plan, the firm’s general counsel and chief administrative officer Todd Molz will also be promoted to coo, and the three will join the US$160bn asset manager’s executive committee.

Wintrob joined Oaktree in 2014 from his previous role as president and ceo of AIG Life and Retirement. He joined AIG following its acquisition of SunAmerica in 1998, where he had progressed to president from the role of assistant to the chairman.

O’Leary and Panossian will serve as co-ceos and will focus on the organisation and performance of Oaktree’s investment teams, while continuing to lead the global opportunities and performing credit teams. They joined the firm in 2002 and 2007 respectively.

Meanwhile, Georges Duponcheele has joined Great Lakes Insurance SE (GLISE), part of the Munich Re group, as senior credit portfolio manager. Duponcheele was previously senior advisor at Risk Control, which he joined in January 2020, having had an almost 20-year career at BNP Paribas that spanned a number of securitisation-related roles.

Deutsche Bank has recruited Phong Lam as global CLO implementation head, within its trust and agency services business. Based in London, he was previously md, capital markets at Vistra.

Francis Teo has joined Mizuho as a director, CLO structuring, based in New York. He was previously head of US CLO structuring at Credit Suisse, which he joined in April 2021 from Moody’s. Before that, Teo worked at PwC and Ambac.

IFM Investors has appointed Adelaide Morphett as associate director, sustainability specialist, based in London. She was previously vp at Newmarket Capital, having joined the team as a financial analyst in July 2017.

Andrew Durante has returned to the Moody’s structured finance team after a two and a half year stint in crossborder sales at BFF Banking. Durante will rejoin the rating agency in Milan as an assistant vp, having previously operated as a sales specialist within its structured finance practice in London.

Santander has made two promotions in its Latin American structured finance team. Nuno da Silva has been promoted to director for structured finance risk and corporate and investment banking risk in Mexico City. He joined the bank from EY in 2018 and is promoted from his role as director for corporate credit risk and investment banking risk at Santander. Luisa Lima has been promoted from senior credit analyst to structured finance specialist, working out of São Paulo. She has been with Santander for five years.

Residential real estate developer Revitalis Real Estate has appointed HypoVereinsbank’s Christina Urlacher as a manager in its real estate structured finance team working out of its Hamburg headquarters. Urlacher leaves her role as wealth client adviser at HypoVereinsbank after seven years with the bank.

Home equity investment fintech Hometap has recruited two new senior members for its executive leadership team amid ongoing efforts to expand in the structured finance sector. Cara Newman and Josh Gaffney have joined the Boston-based firm to serve as head of structured finance and general counsel respectively. Hometap welcomes Newman to the newly established role from Redwood Trust where she served in a similar capacity as head of structured finance since 2018, and Gaffney from BANYAN where he operated as chief privacy officer and general counsel.

In other fintech news, Miami-headquartered CRE debt management and placement platform Finneo has appointed Yellowstone Capital Partners’ Makenzie Warlow as associate vice president. Warlow leaves his role as a private equity-focused vp at Yellowstone after a year with the firm. He previously spent two and a half years on the San Francisco-based CMBS origination team at Deutsche Bank and two years on the commercial real estate debt team at HFF.

CBRE has promoted assistant director Harry Burgess and associate director Stéphanie Müller to the position of director on its operating real estate team within the firm’s debt and structured finance practice. Burgess and Müller are both based in London and both joined CBRE in 2021.

And finally, European DataWarehouse has appointed 321 Crédito’s Fernando Lopes as a senior structured finance data analyst in its Frankfurt office. Lopes leaves his role as financial controller on the auto ABS team at 321 Crédito after two years with the firm and will relocate from Porto. He previously spent two and a half years at EY, based in its Braga office.