Career moves

Stephen Staid has joined Saxon Mortgage Services Inc., Irving, Texas, as executive vice president of customer relationship management. The Morgan Stanley-owned Saxon is repositioning itself into the residential subservicing space, specializing in distressed asset servicing. In this role, Mr. Staid will be responsible for financial transaction management, early stage delinquency, modification fulfillment, command center, call monitoring and customer service. He also will serve as a member of the Saxon executive committee, reporting directly to chief executive Anthony Meola. Mr. Staid has more than 15 years of mortgage servicing management experience. He specializes in customer service operations and has a deep knowledge of servicing technology.

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. has named Wall Street veteran Steve Abrahams as its new chief of securitization/MBS research within the firm's global markets division. Mr. Abrahams, most recently founder and a managing director at Citadel Capital Partners, will carry the title of managing director. During his career, he also worked at Bear Stearns as global head of liquid product strategy, and at Freddie Mac as a credit portfolio manager. Art Frank, who had been DB's director and head of mortgage-backed securities research, has left the company. Mr. Frank could not be reached for comment. Also departing DB is Karen Weaver, who headed securitization research. Ms. Weaver, one of the first on Wall Street to predict the housing bubble and mortgage crash, is retiring. A longtime mortgage researcher, Mr. Frank previously worked for Barclays Capital and for several years headed MBS research for Nomura Securities. In addition to Mr. Abrahams, Deutsche Bank Securities recently hired Dominic Konstam as global head of rates research. Mr. Konstam comes to the firm from Credit Suisse where he was in charge of global interest rate research.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, Calabasas, Calif. said its chief investment officer, Michael Muir, has resigned effective March 2. No reason was given for his departure. The publicly traded mortgage vulture fund named Vandad Fartaj as its new CIO, effective March 3. A spokeswoman for PennyMac said Mr. Fartaj has been with the company since its inception two years ago. As CIO Mr. Fartaj will be responsible for all capital markets activities, including asset valuation, trading, hedging and research. Mr. Fartaj also was named chief capital markets officer for two PennyMac affiliates. Prior to joining PennyMac, he held a number of positions at Countrywide Securities Corp., a broker-dealer, including vice president of whole loan trading. Later this year PennyMac hopes to launch its lending conduit.

Radian Group has named commercial banker Robert Griffith executive vice president and chief operating officer for its principal mortgage insurance subsidiary, Radian Guaranty Inc. Mr. Griffith will be responsible for the company's operations, loss management and information technology functions and will report directly to Radian Guaranty president Teresa Bryce. Most recently, Mr. Griffith served as senior vice president for Bank of America, where he was responsible for a nationwide network of loan fulfillment centers providing underwriting, processing and loan funding services. Prior to that, he was president and chief executive officer of Irwin Mortgage Corp. Mr. Griffith is a past chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association's Residential Board of Governors. He has been a member of both the Fannie Mae National Advisory Council and the Housing Policy Council of the Financial Services Roundtable.

Theodore Tozer is the new Ginnie Mae president after being sworn in on Wednesday by HUD secretary Shaun Donovan. "I am looking forward to the challenges and I believe my 30 years' experience in the mortgage capital markets has uniquely prepared me to manage Ginnie Mae," Mr. Tozer said. Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities issuance totaled $454 billion in calendar year 2009, up from $270 billion the previous year. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Tozer said Ginnie Mae has become a major player in the MBS market and it has to address counterparty risk with its MBS issuers. The Senate confirmed Mr. Tozer on Feb. 11. He began working on Ginnie securitizations in 1986 at National City Mortgages, which was acquired by PNC Financial Services Group in 2008. "Ted is the right person to guide Ginnie Mae through the turmoil in the housing and secondary mortgage markets," secretary Donovan said.

LoanMarket.net, an online auction website specializing in residential and commercial loans, has hired mortgage banking veteran David Akre as a managing director. Mr. Akre co-founded New York Mortgage Trust, a mortgage lending and investing REIT that went public back in 2004. During his career, he also worked in secondary marketing and sales at Thornburg Mortgage, Santa Fe. Based in Irvine, Calif., LoanMarket is privately held. The company has been selling performing, subperforming and delinquent notes for almost a year.

The National Housing Conference named Maureen Friar, a New York housing executive, to be its new president and chief executive. She has served as executive director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York for 14 years and has experience in building a "strong and engaged membership organization," NHC said. Most recently, Ms. Friar was a marketing consultant to the National Equity Fund, a nonprofit investor in low-income housing tax credits. Founded 75 years ago, the National Housing Conference is an umbrella group that strives to promote national housing policies in a nonpartisan way. It also has a research affiliate — the Center for Housing Policy. Conrad Egan has led NHC for the past 12 years and plans to remain with the organization through the end of this year to help with the transition.

Tony Renzi, a 24-year veteran of GMAC Mortgage and its affiliates, has been forced out of his position as chief operating officer and president, according to company employees who work under him. A spokeswoman confirmed to National Mortgage News that Mr. Renzi is departing effective March 2 due to "streamlining efforts" and that his duties have been given to others at GMAC, which oversees Residential Capital Corp. The company declined to elaborate but issued a statement saying, "Tony has made valuable contributions in the mortgage lending and servicing business during his tenure with the company and we thank him for his many years of service." One employee said he and others at GMAC/ResCap were informed of his departure early in the morning "and even though they said his last day" will be in early March, he has not been at the company since Feb. 5 or so. Over the years, Mr. Renzi helped build GMAC's servicing business into one of the largest in the nation.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which is controlled by the U.K government, has expanded its residential and commercial MBS/ABS team by two. Gregory Reiter, previously a portfolio manager at the World Bank, joins RBS as managing director in charge of agency residential security strategy. Jeana Curro, previously a director in fixed-income strategy at UBS, was named vice president, agency MBS/collateralized mortgage obligations. Both will be based in Stamford, Conn.

Residential mortgage lender Platinum Home Mortgage Corp. has appointed a senior executive vice president for the company's "Midwest expansion" division. Don Grudzinski, who previously was vice president of production at Platinum Home Mortgage, has been named to the post. In his new position, Mr. Grudzinski will be responsible for both residential originations and operations. He has more than two decades of experience in mortgage sales.

Bank of America Home Loans, Calabasas, has named an origination executive, Matt Vernon, to lead its effort in residential short sales and REO dispositions. Mr. Vernon will move from the bank's production unit over to its servicing division in an effort to move foreclosed properties off its balance sheet. Thanks to its acquisitions of Countrywide Financial Corp., and Merrill Lynch & Co., BoA has one of the largest portfolios of troubled mortgages in the nation, according to nonperforming loan figures compiled by National Mortgage News. "The distressed economy is creating extraordinary volume on mortgage servicers in short sales and post-foreclosure REO activities," Mr. Vernon said in a statement. "We know we need to improve processes and efficiencies in these areas." Prior to his new assignment he worked for the bank as an enterprise sales executive, leading its origination and cross-selling efforts through BoA's 6,000 retail locations.

Kennedy Wilson Multifamily, Beverly Hills, Calif., a division of the international real estate services and investment firm Kennedy Wilson, has hired Bradley Adams as managing director, acquisitions. Previously, Mr. Adams was vice president of the real estate finance department for the LeFrak Organization. Prior to that, he was with Trizec Properties, first based in San Diego as part of the retail division, then as part of TrizecHahn Europe, the company's entrance into the pan-European retail real estate market.

Securities and investment banking firm Jefferies, New York, has appointed a managing director and global head of collateralized loan obligation and collateralized debt obligation trading within its mortgage- and asset-backed securities group who will work out of the company's London office. Sharif Anbar-Colas, previously managing director and head of European ABS and global CLO trading at Cohen & Co., will be taking the post at Jefferies. The growing Jefferies MBS/ABS group said it now has about 85 sales, trading and origination professionals on staff in offices in New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

DebtMarket of Los Angeles, which operates an online marketplace for trading whole loans, has officially named Stuart McFarland, a former Fannie Mae chief financial officer, as a top advisor to the firm. The company said Mr. McFarland will serve as a special advisor for capital and federal markets. The company also named Jim Jones and Bob Feller to its board. During his long career in mortgages, Mr. McFarland has worked for GE Capital Asset Management, and Pedestal, an early B2B online trading platform. Mr. Jones is a former CEO of GMAC's Residential Capital Corp. unit and Mr. Feller is a former CEO of Capmark Financial Group, a company that recently went through bankruptcy. Mr. McFarland first began working with DebtMarket late last year.

At the first trimester meeting of 2010 of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, overall attendance was at a two-year high and volunteers of the technology data standards body elected a new chairman and vice chairman. Harry Gardner, the chief strategy officer at SigniaDocs, was elected to the MISMO governance committee. Shortly after his seat on governance was secured, he also was elected chairman of the standards group, replacing Ron Duff of Fiserv. Mr. Gardner also will be the liaison between MISMO's governance body and the board. Taking on a leadership role within MISMO is actually old hat for Mr. Gardner -- he was in charge of MISMO when he served as the vice president of industry technology for MBA. Early last year, Mr. Gardner and the entire industry technology staff at MBA were laid off as MBA opted to outsource the management of MISMO to MERS instead of relying on internal, paid staff to do the job.

State Bank of North Carolina is acquiring cross-town mortgage lender Affiliated Mortgage LLC of Raleigh for an undisclosed sum. The agreement calls for the purchase to close on or before February 12, 2010, at which time Affiliated will become a new division of the bank called North State Bank Mortgage. Ken Sykes, Affiliated's managing partner, will serve as president. "Simply put, we are in the relationship banking business," said North State president and chief executive Larry Barbour. "Being able to provide residential mortgages for our customers is a critical part of our commitment to serving them." Affiliated opened its doors in 1994 as a mortgage broker but subsequently became a mortgage banker. "The staff at Affiliated offers excellent service, and culturally our two firms are well-aligned, which is extremely important as we work together," Barbour said. Mr. Sykes noted that both entities serve same clientele.

Clayton Holdings, Shelton, Conn., has hired Raymond Redlingshafer as senior managing director. Mr. Redlingshafer brings more than 25 years of experience to Clayton Holdings including trading MBS and whole loans, managing a fixed-income institutional sales force, founding a mortgage REIT and taking the company public. At Clayton he will focus on expanding the firm's relationships with secondary market participants and on business development and promotion of its core products. "Although the secondary markets have been in turmoil, there remain opportunities in the market," said Paul Bossidy, Clayton's chief executive officer. "Investors need more than data; they need useful information and insights. Ray brings the market acumen and experience to enable Clayton to help our clients succeed."

Ginnie Mae has experienced tremendous growth in the last few years, therefore it faces operational challenges, according to Theodore Tozer, President Obama's nominee to be the agency's new president. Mr. Tozer told the Senate Banking Committee at his confirmation hearing that Ginnie Mae has become a major player in the mortgage-backed securities market and it has to address counter-party risk with its MBS issuers. "Ginnie has a good foundation and dedicated staff and I look forward to working with them, if confirmed, to move the agency to the next level and make it a very solid operation that can support the housing market," he told the senators. It appears that the full Senate, according to lobbyists, will confirm Mr. Tozer. The nominee has worked at National City and now at PNC Financial Services Group as a capital markets executive. Mr. Tozer has been involved in issuing Ginnie Mae MBS since 1986. Ginnie Mae issued $414 billion in MBS last year, up from $97 billion in 2007.

Mortgage brokers are hopeful that the newly elected Senator from Massachusetts — a closing attorney who once worked with loan officers — could come to their aid. State Senator Scott Brown, a Republican, on Tuesday won the open Senate seat created by the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) "He understands how things work," said Marc Savitt, president of the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals. A spokeswoman for Mr. Brown confirmed that he has worked as a closing attorney but said it is too early for him to start talking about where he stands on such issues as the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and tighter regulation for loan officers and loan brokers. Still, some mortgage brokers are optimistic on the possibilities. "It certainly can't hurt that he used to do closings," said Mr. Savitt. Richard Shapiro, principal in Asset Mortgage Group of Natick, Mass., said he has not closed loans with Mr. Brown but said one of his staffers has. "He's a small local guy," he said of Mr. Brown. Mr. Shapiro said he is hopeful that if Mr. Brown becomes a member of the Senate Banking Committee he might be able to help brokers with some of the hefty licensing fees they are now being charged.

Mark Savitt, the immediate past president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers — and who recently launched a new trade group — has resigned from NAMB's board of directors, effective immediately. Mr. Savitt said his resignation from NAMB was his own decision but declined to comment further except to say this week he is meeting with government representatives on two key issues facing the industry: the Home Valuation Code of Conduct, and yield spread premiums. Mr. Savitt's new trade group is called the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals. He is president and CEO of the group, which officially launched two weeks ago. At NAMB, George Hanzimanolis, who was the organization's president in 2007- 2008, has been appointed to fill out Mr. Savitt's term and will serve as chairman of NAMB's nominating committee. No reason was given in a statement issued by NAMB.