Career moves

GMAC Financial Services has promoted Jeffrey Lemieux, a former executive at Cerberus Capital, to the position of senior vice president of business lending sales in its mortgage division. In his expanded role he will oversee customer relationships in the firm's correspondent channel and warehouse network under the auspices of the business lending/mortgage capital markets unit. Lemieux's promotion comes in the wake of several recent departures of top managers in the servicing department of Residential Capital Corp., GMAC's mortgage banking affiliate. Earlier this week, National Mortgage News broke the news that servicing executive John Vella had left the company to take a position with another firm. Prior to his promotion, Lemieux was senior vice president of fee based servicing and he retains these responsibilities managing the servicing capabilities that GMAC provides to third-party organizations. A few years back Cerberus paid $14 billion for a 51% stake in GMAC. Today, that stake has been reduced to just under 15%, leaving Cerberus with a massive paper loss on its investment. The U.S. Treasury is the largest stakeholder in GMAC with 56.3%. The company has hired Goldman Sachs to explore a sale of ResCap.

A few months after losing his job during a cost-cutting maneuver at GMAC, industry veteran Tony Renzi has landed at Freddie Mac and will be in charge of the GSE's efforts to minimize losses in its portfolio while dealing with its seller/servicers. Industry sources said Renzi also interviewed over at Fannie Mae. Bruce Witherell, Renzi's new boss at Freddie, said he could not comment on where else the former GMAC servicing executive interviewed but said, "We're happy to have him here at Freddie." The GSE created a new position for Renzi, who worked at GMAC for more than 20 years. He will hold the title of executive vice president, single-family portfolio management. Witherell, Freddie's chief operating officer, said Renzi "will be involved in all aspects of our decisions on the credit and default side," including the disposition of Freddie's REO holdings.

Craig Lipsay, the former head of securitized products at Morgan Stanley & Co., has been named managing partner at Loan Value Group LLC. During his 19 years on Wall Street, including a stint at Merrill Lynch, Lipsay worked in both residential and commercial with a focus on structured credit products. In his new role he will work with institutional clients to implement LVG's default deterrent for borrowers with negative equity positions. Lipsay will focus on the firm's Responsible Homeowner Reward program, which allows mortgage holders to make cash payments to select homeowners affected by negative equity that the borrowers will only receive if they remain current on their loans.

John Vella, executive vice president of portfolio servicing strategies for Residential Capital Corp., has resigned from the company, effective immediately, and is on the verge of taking a job with Fannie Mae, industry officials told National Mortgage News. At press time, Fannie Mae had not commented on the matter. According to a memo from GMAC mortgage chairman Tom Marano, Vella's duties will be given over to chief servicing officer Joe Pensabene. Vella joined the nation's sixth largest residential servicer in the fall of 2008. In his memo Marano said, "John provided leadership for our mortgage employees in Dallas, Carlsbad and Costa Mesa during a time of considerable change as we sought to reduce costs, and restructure and refocus our operations." Last month, NMN reported on the departure of about eight servicing managers at ResCap.

John Vella, executive vice president of portfolio servicing strategies for Residential Capital Corp., has resigned from the company, effective immediately, according to a memo provided to National Mortgage News. At press time, the GMAC-owned ResCap could not be reached for comment. According to a memo from GMAC mortgage chairman Tom Marano, Vella's duties will be given over to chief servicing officer Joe Pensabene. Vella joined the nation's sixth largest residential servicer in the fall of 2008. In his memo Marano said, "John provided leadership for our mortgage employees in Dallas, Carlsbad and Costa Mesa during a time of considerable change as we sought to reduce costs, and restructure and refocus our operations." Last month, NMN reported on the departure of about eight servicing managers at ResCap.

Meridian Capital Group LLC, one of the nation's largest commercial real estate mortgage brokerage firms, has hired industry veteran Marty Lanigan as senior managing director of origination and strategic initiatives. Among his duties, Lanigan will be responsible for overseeing the firm's origination efforts nationally. He will report to company president and CEO Ralph Herzka. During his career Lanigan has worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Co., and GMAC Commercial Mortgage, among other firms. In 2001, he founded Mezz Cap, which eventually grew into a mid-market commercial mezzanine lender. The New York-based Meridian was founded by Herzka in 1991. To date it has placed more than $100 billion in commercial real estate debt.

Zions Bancorp, a top-ranked residential lender in Utah, named Kenneth Peterson executive vice president and chief credit officer, effective May 1. Peterson replaces Gerald Dent, who is retiring after 33 years with the company. Mr. Peterson joins Zions from Wells Fargo & Co. where he served as a chief credit officer for corporate credit and risk.

Reverse Mortgage Solutions Inc. promoted chief operating officer Marc Helm to president. Helm, a founding partner of the Spring, Texas-based firm, replaces Ken Austin, who is leaving the company to pursue personal interests, a company statement said. Helm joined RMS after a career of 30 years in the mortgage-servicing sector. He is a former senior officer at Washington Mutual, where he was responsible for helping WaMu integrate all loan servicing acquisitions into its system. In addition, RMS hired Michael Clendennen as chief financial officer and Michael Kent as senior vice president of portfolio retention. Clendennen has served the past eight years as vice president and controller at Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp., Houston. Kent has over 28 years of experience with regional and national lending institutions, including several senior management and executive positions. For the past eight years, he has owned and operated mortgage and real estate sales companies in Los Gatos, Calif.

Radian Guaranty Inc., the mortgage insurance subsidiary of Radian Group Inc. has appointed Brian Frame to the be director, strategic segment manager. In his new role, Frame will be responsible for expanding Radian's relationships with credit unions across the United States by working with the company's national field sales team to promote Radian products and programs. He will also represent Radian at state credit union league meetings and other credit union conferences. In addition, Frame will participate on the ACUMA Membership Committee and interface with a variety of loan origination system providers to expand Radian's connectivity within the electronic mediums that credit unions work with each day. Prior to his new appointment, Frame served as a senior account manager with Radian, responsible for client accounts throughout the state of Wisconsin. He has been actively involved with the mortgage banking and insurance industries for the past 25 years.

HOPE LoanPort, the new counselor Web-based tool that streamlines submission of completed loan modification applications, including those used for the Home Affordable Modification Program, has named six people to serve on its board of directors. The organization also named its CEO. There are plans to expand the Board in the near future to reflect the diversity of the organizations involved with this web portal initiative. Larry Gilmore, currently the deputy director of the HOPE NOW Alliance, will assume the day-to-day management of HOPE LoanPort. The following individuals will make up the board of directors: William Longbrake, an executive in residence at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland where he works on a variety of business, policy and governance issues; John Dalton, former Secretary of the Navy in the Clinton administration; John Courson, the president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association; Faith Schwartz, the executive director of HOPE NOW; Kenneth Wade, the CEO of NeighborWorks America, a public nonprofit corporation established as the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp. by an Act of Congress in 1978; and Camillo Melchiorre, senior vice president of loss management for Radian Guaranty Inc.

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp., Sun Prairie, Wis., has promoted Paul Walnick from senior vice president of information technology to president of mortgage operations and Dan Cutaia from chief operating officer to president of capital markets and risk management. Walnick will oversee Fairway's day-to-day mortgage business and underwriting operations while providing branch and product support. Cutaia will oversee the overhaul of Fairway's loan origination platform, as well as all technical and compliance related issues, systems and secondary business. In 2009, Fairway closed $3.3 billion in mortgage volume, a 70% increase from the prior year. Steve Jacobson remains as chief executive. Walnick has held sales management positions at both Waterfield Financial Corp., and American Home Mortgage, where he oversaw retail sales production in Texas and Arizona. Cutaia was the founder and former president of Aucita Mortgage Capital and held executive positions with Waterfield Financial, where he oversaw numerous infrastructure initiatives involving post production and delivery, and product and credit risk.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired Wall Street veteran Steve Harris as managing director in charge of mortgage sales for its Americas division. Harris will report to Michael Hokin, head of America's mortgages and securitized product sales at the bank. According to StructuredFinanceNews.com, Hokin-who was formerly head of global securitized markets sales at Citigroup-joined Bank of America Merrill last September. Prior to his hiring, Harris had a six-month stint at Rafferty Capital as a manager in structured products. From 1987 to 2009 he worked for Goldman Sachs as a manager in mortgage sales.

General Growth Properties, Chicago, one of the largest commercial REITs in the nation, said director Glen Rufrano has resigned from its board. In a new SEC filing, the company said his departure "is not due to any disagreement between Mr. Rufrano" and the company. General Growth is a real estate investment trust that invests and owns shopping malls, master planned communities, and other CRE assets.

Jefferies & Co. named Mark Green as a managing director and head of CMBS capital markets. Green will report jointly to William Jennings and Johan Eveland, co-heads of Jefferies' MBS/ABS group, as well as Benjamin Lorello, global head of investment banking and capital markets at Jefferies. According to a report in Asset Securitization Report, Green will become part of a team consisting of Joe Accurso and Lisa Pendergast, who co-head CMBS trading and strategy, and Dana Arrighi who heads CRE origination. Green has 11 years of CMBS capital markets experience and joins Jefferies from UBS, where for four years he was a managing director and head of CMBS capital markets. "With the ongoing rebound in capital markets activity, there is an even greater need and demand from our clients for innovative financing and ideas," Jennings and Eveland said. The company views the CMBS market as a major investment banking opportunity this year. Asset Securitization Report is an affiliate of National Mortgage News.

David Kittle, the immediate past chair of the Mortgage Bankers Association, has joined IMARC, a mortgage auditing firm based in Santa Ana, Calif. A senior director at IMARC, Mr. Kittle will manage the firm's Washington office and will be responsible for government and industry relations as well as the development of client services. Before climbing to the top of the MBA leadership ladder, Mr. Kittle was president and chief executive officer of Principle Wholesale Lending in Louisville. After leaving his MBA post, he joined another former MBA chair, Regina Lowrie, at Vision Mortgage Capital, where he was executive vice president. He continues to serve on the MBA board. IMARC's clients are publicly traded mortgage investors and insurers.

First American Corp., Santa Ana, Calif., in preparation for the split of its title and information services businesses into separate publicly traded companies, has named Anand K. Nallathambi as chief executive and Buddy Piszel as chief financial officer of its information solutions group. Mr. Nallathambi, who was appointed president and chief operating officer of the ISG in December, will continue to serve in those capacities. Mr. Piszel will continue to serve as the parent company's chief financial officer. The company's Financial Services Group will commence a search for Mr. Piszel's replacement as its chief financial officer. The target date for the split is June 1. Mr. Nallathambi previously served as chief executive and president of First Advantage Corp., which, until November 2009, was a majority-owned public subsidiary of the company and a business segment within the Information Solutions Group. Mr. Piszel joined the company as chief financial officer in January 2009. Prior to that, he was executive vice president and chief financial officer for Freddie Mac. In a separate announcement, First American said it would purchase the remaining 18% of First American CoreLogic that it does not already own. Parker S. Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of First American, said the purchase of the outstanding shares will simplify the structure as the information solutions group, which First American CoreLogic is a part of, moves toward being spun off. "This acquisition will result in an extra measure of flexibility and operational efficiency that will be beneficial as we develop our next-generation analytic capabilities for the financial services and capital markets industries," he added.

American Advisors Group, a reverse mortgage lender based in Irvine, Calif., will remove Peter Graves' image from its national television advertising following the actor's passing. Since October 2009, Mr. Graves had been the celebrity spokesman for the company. In a statement, AAG chief executive Reza Jahangiri said, "We will talk with his family and representatives at a later date about the future. Peter Graves was selected as AAG's spokesperson because of the man he was on and off the camera. He represented everything AAG aspires to be-trustworthy, respectful, intelligent and positive. We felt his values reflected ours, and our professional relationship was always positive for both parties." In an AAG press release earlier this year, Mr. Graves commented about why he was selected as a celebrity spokesman for reverse mortgages. "Well, it's a compliment certainly and I am humbled by the trust seniors have placed in me." Mr. Graves is best known for his role as Jim Phelps in the television series "Mission Impossible" and for his comedic turn as Captain Clarence Oveur in the movie "Airplane!"

Kevin Jackson, previously a director in convexity products at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, will be joining Wells Fargo Securities as part of the firm's efforts to bolster its residential financing, origination, and trading activities. In his new position, Mr. Jackson - who joined Merrill in August 2007 - will be a director, specified pool trader and desk strategist. The new hire, who will be officially joining Wells Fargo in two months, will be reporting to Joe Gaziano, who is managing director and head of pass-through trading at the Wells.

Bill Petersohn, director of bulk acquisitions and capital market sales for Residential Capital Corp., Horsham, Pa., has resigned from the mortgage banker to take a job with an analytics firm. Mr. Petersohn is joining MCT Capital Trading, San Diego, as a regional director in charge of sales. Prior to his departure he managed ResCap's '3-D' correspondent program which involves ResCap/GMAC acquiring the servicing rights on mortgages that eventually are sold to Fannie Mae. Recently, according to sources familiar with the situation, ResCap eliminated smaller mortgage correspondents from the program. A ResCap spokeswoman said the 3-D program "has always been geared toward larger correspondents." She said Mr. Petersohn "is not a senior or executive level manager" at the company and his departure is "unrelated to changes made within the 3-D program." She declined to specify what those changes were.

Two top officers in charge of the fast growing MetLife Home Loans, Memphis, have departed the bank-owned residential lender/servicer, National Mortgage News has learned. Leaving the company is Peter Makowiecki, a senior vice president at MetLife Bank who had responsibility for MLHL, and Jeffrey Brown, a vice president at the bank who played a key role in the firm's originations. Both men were on board at First Horizon Mortgage when its parent bank, First Tennessee Corp., sold most of the lender to MetLife almost two years ago. At the end of September, MLHL ranked 11th nationwide in originations with a growth rate of 456%, according to the Quarterly Data Report. A spokesman for MetLife in Rhode Island confirmed to NMN that the two men resigned from the company "effective immediately to pursue other interests." He declined to elaborate. The two men, who were based in Texas, could not be reached for comment. Mr. Brown is the son of Carl Brown who ran Carl I. Brown & Co. for many years before that nonbank was sold to First Tennessee back in 1995. "Jeff has been with them a long time," said one business associate. "At one point he was the head of all production."