US
Merrill Lynch Hires Mortgage Chiefs
Sep 4 2008
Merrill Lynch hired mortgage securities executives from JPMorgan and Citigroup to lead securitization and trading operations.
Michael Nierenberg joins Merrill as global head of mortgages and securitized products. He headed global securitized products at JPMorgan since the acquisition of Bear Stearns, where he'd led various fixed-income trading desks since the mid-1990s. Before joining Bear Stearns, Nierenberg spent seven years at Lehman Brothers and was instrumental in building up that firm's adjustable rate mortgage business. At Merrill, he will report to Thomas K. Montag, head of global sales and trading.
James De Mare, who was Citigroup's global head of mortgage trading, will assume a similar role at Merrill. He joined Citi predecessor Salomon Brothers in 1997 to run its adjustable rate trading business, and previously worked at Bear Stearns and Prudential Securities. De Mare will report to Nierenberg.
It is unfortunate that these two men were instrumental in the destruction of so much wealth for the share holders of both Bear Stearns and Citigroup. Their blindness to long term vision demonstrated by their lack of risk management and downside protection in relation to the adjustable rate mortgage back securities that they loaded their previous companies with leads to a bleak future for Merill. Hopefully they will take their big checks and retire before they do any more harm to Merill and the tax payers before the next housing cycle.
Art 12 Sep 2008
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