Career moves

Government-sponsored enterprise regulator James Lockhart is joining Wilbur Ross' firm, which specializes in managing funds that invest in distressed companies such as American Home Mortgage Services and BankUnited. Mr. Ross cited Mr. Lockhart's "unique insights into the U.S. mortgage markets" in the hire, saying this would help the company expand investment opportunities for its institutional and individual clients. Federal Housing Finance Agency director Lockhart — who recently stated his decision to step down — will become the vice chairman of WL Ross & Co. LLC in September. Mr. Lockhart will officially step down as the regulator of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks on Friday (Aug. 21) and Edward DeMarco will assume the duties of acting FHFA director on Monday.

Former Ginnie Mae president Joseph Murin and former FHA commissioner Brian Montgomery are launching a Washington consulting firm to provide advisory services for mortgage company executives. Mr. Murin said the firm aims to help clients operate strategically in a business environment where markets and the regulatory landscape are shifting. The Collingwood Group already has an office on Pennsylvania Ave. and it has merged with Capital Financial Solutions, which was founded by two former Fannie Mae executives. Mr. Montgomery said the merger will give Collingwood clients access to expertise in fraud prevention, risk management analytics, mortgage fulfillment services, REO and loan modification management. The former Ginnie Mae and Federal Housing Administration officials recently left their government posts and they cannot directly contact those agencies on behalf of clients for one year.

GMAC-ResCap has entered into an arrangement with Mountain Funding LLC to provide asset servicing and consulting advice for some of the REO assets in GMAC-ResCap's Business Capital Group portfolio in a deal that will put a former ResCap-BCG executive at the head of a Mountain unit. The arrangement, which was completed through Mountain's asset management affiliate, the Charlotte, N.C.-based Mountain Special Servicing LLC, has been in process for several months. "There were no layoffs associated with this transaction. A small group of employees left ResCap to immediately join Mountain Funding as per agreement between both firms," said a spokesperson for GMAC-ResCap. Mountain Funding has absorbed 14 members of senior management from the REO asset management group. Joining Mountain Special Servicing as managing director will be GMAC-ResCap's former head of ResCap-BCG REO management, Joel Kaul, who will head up the company's residential asset management group. Combined with its existing portfolio, Mountain Special Servicing now has 90 assets under management, totaling $1 billion in unpaid principal balance. The assets are diversified over 20 states and include residential land development, residential lot development/sale, housing construction/sale, commercial land development, subperforming retail centers, fractured condos, apartments, and resort development. ResCap, the fifth largest mortgage servicer, said it continues to provide mortgage servicing and subservicing for a portfolio of approximately 2.6 million mortgage loans.

Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, D- Conn., has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and he will have an operation during August when the Senate is not in session. Sen. Dodd said the cancer was discovered in an early state and his "prognosis is excellent." After the Senate adjourns, "I am going to have surgery. After a brief recuperation at home, I'll be back at work," Sen. Dodd said. The Connecticut senator is running for re-election next year. Sen. Dodd also is a key player in the Obama Administration's efforts to restructure regulation of the financial system and reform health care.

The Real Estate Roundtable has named Daniel M. Neidich, co-CEO of New York-based Dune Capital Management LP, as its new chairman. He succeeds Hilton Hotels president and CEO Christopher J. Nassetta. Mr. Neidich said the most significant issue facing him as he takes over the leadership of the group is the ongoing liquidity and refinancing crisis that is forcing real estate owners into bankruptcy and pushing up delinquency rates on commercial mortgages. The remaining executive board members are: secretary, Robert S. Taubman, chairman, president and CEO of Taubman Centers Inc.; and treasurer, Jeffrey Schwartz, chairman of Global Logistic Properties. The Roundtable's current policy agenda includes a "Five Point Plan" for restoring liquidity to the credit market. While some of those steps have already been enacted, the group said additional policy action is needed to facilitate loan workouts and restructurings through temporary changes in the tax rules governing real estate mortgage investment conduits. Also needed is an overhaul of policies governing foreign investment in U.S. real estate. "The debt markets, including the CMBS market, are still generally dysfunctional, transaction volume remains at virtually zero, and commercial property values remain under downward pressure," said Mr. Neidich.

Tom Neary has resigned as executive vice president and senior managing director of Residential Capital Corp., effective at the end of July. Mr. Neary joined the nation's seventh-largest residential originator a year ago and was brought in by ResCap chairman and CEO Tom Marano. "He resigned for personal reasons," a company spokeswoman confirmed to this newspaper. He is responsible for managing the business risk for ResCap's mortgage servicing rights and oversees its pipeline hedging activities. ResCap is an affiliate of GMAC Financial Services.

Jefferies continues to expand its residential/commercial mortgage- and asset-backed securities effort with the hiring of a new managing director and head of the company's MBS/ABS/CMBS group in Boston. Mark Plansky, who previously worked for Barclays for eight years, was hired to lead the Boston securitization group. Jefferies said its MBS/ABS/CMBS group now includes more than 60 sales, trading and origination professionals in the U.S. and London, including former RBS Greenwich Capital CMBS researcher Lisa Pendergast, whom it hired in June as head of CMBS strategy and risk.

Southwest Securities Inc., Dallas, has expanded its taxable fixed-income trading desks with two mortgage-related appointments. Steve Palmer has been named senior vice president, mortgage trading in Southwest's New York office. In addition, Southwest has named Derek Rose as senior vice president, asset-backed and commercial mortgage-backed securities in its Chicago office. Most recently, Mr. Palmer was an executive director with JPMorgan, where he traded non-agency fixed rate securities and unsecuritized residential loans. Mr. Rose most recently was an ABS/CMBS trader and director of securitization syndicate in RBC Capital Markets' New York office.

Freddie Mac has named Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr., a former mutual fund executive, its new chief executive office, effective this August. About a month ago his name leaked out in relation to the CEO job and was considered a done deal but needed the approval of Freddie's regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. FHFA signed off on the nomination this week. Mr. Haldeman, 60, recently stepped down as chairman of Putnam Investment Management after a seven-year term. He succeeds John Koskinen who had been serving as interim CEO since March. Freddie Mac, which continues to lose money, has been operating under a government conservatorship since September. It's expected to release second quarter earnings some time in August.

Fortress Investment Group, which controls a mid-sized subprime servicing operation, has hired former Fannie Mae chief Daniel Mudd to be its new chief executive. Mr. Mudd was forced out of the money-losing Fannie Mae in September when the company and its sister firm, Freddie Mac, were placed into separate conservatorships. Mr. Mudd became CEO of the GSE in 2004 in the wake of a $6 billion accounting scandal where the firm's former management understated its prior years earnings. Under Mr. Mudd's stewardship Fannie became a large investor in MBS backed by alternative-A credit loans. The declining value of those securities has forced the GSE to book multibillion-dollar losses. A few years back Fortress bought Centex Home Equity of Dallas, once one of the nation's largest subprime lenders. Centex changed its name to Nationstar Mortgage and eventually ceased originating new loans but remains as a servicer. Mr. Mudd will take the reins of the publicly traded Fortress on Aug. 11. He is currently a director of the company. Fortress, whose shares trade for $3, manages $26.5 billion in assets.

Catherine Cruz Wojtasik, a Democratic lobbyist for the Mortgage Bankers Association, is leaving the trade group to take a job on Capitol Hill. A MBA spokeswoman confirmed her departure noting that it will hire a replacement for Ms. Wojtasik. It's believed that she has accepted a position with the Senate Banking Committee but at press time it could not be confirmed. Meanwhile Cheryl Malloy, who handles multifamily issues for MBA, is retiring soon but will stay on as consultant through September.

The Senate has confirmed David Stevens to be the new Federal Housing Administration commissioner and he is expected to begin work at the mortgage insurance agency on Monday. Mr. Stevens' nomination has been help up for several months due to alleged Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act violations by his former employer Long & Foster — a mid-Atlantic real estate brokerage firm. The RESPA complaints did not name Mr. Stevens and HUD secretary Shaun Donovan continued to support Mr. Stevens, claiming his executive experience at Freddie Mac and Wells Fargo Home Loan is needed at FHA. Meanwhile, FHA commissioner Brian Montgomery finally stepped down on July 3 after it was clear the Mr. Stevens would be confirmed. Mr. Montgomery was appointed to the FHA post by former President Bush and he was asked to stay by the Obama administrations until his successor is confirmed. "I was pleased to be able to serve the Obama Administration as a holdover, which is exactly what Secretary Donovan did back in 2001 in the early months of the Bush Administration," Mr. Montgomery said in a farewell note. "Having worked for Secretary Donovan for the past 5 ½ months, I want to tell you that he is a man of great vision and commitment to the causes that HUD champions," Mr. Montgomery said.

American International Group subsidiary United Guaranty Corp., Greensboro, N.C., has a new chief operating officer who — like the company's recently named chief executive — at one time worked for Safeco Corp., Seattle. Kim Garland will have responsibility for UGC's claims service and operations, business development, underwriting, marketing and risk management functions. Most recently, he was the president of the Open Seas Solutions group for Safeco. UGC president and CEO Eric Martinez, before joining the mortgage insurer's parent company AIG, New York, earlier this year, was executive vice president — claims, customer care and business operations for Safeco. Mr. Garland's previous positions also include being vice president, auto product management at Safeco, and before that he held various senior management and actuarial positions at Safeco and GEICO.

Former Freddie Mac president Eugene M. McQuade will join Citigroup as chief executive for Citibank N.A. Most recently, Mr. McQuade was vice chairman of Merrill Lynch and president of Merrill Lynch Banks (U.S.) from February 2008 until February 2009. Before that, he was president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac for three years starting in August 2004; he declined to seek renewal of his contract when it expired in September 2007. Mr. McQuade served as president of Bank of America Corp. after it acquired FleetBoston Corp. where he had been president and COO. He joined Fleet in 1992 and became chief financial officer in 1993, vice chairman in 1997 and president and COO in 2002.

Amherst Holdings LLC, an Austin, Texas-based company that assists institutional investors in the U.S. residential mortgage market, is expanding overseas to Asia. Paul Kan, previously a senior vice president and senior trader of mortgage-backed securities and securitized products for Asia at Lehman Brothers, has been named managing director of the new Hong Kong-based venture. The company said its initial focus will be on facilitating securities transactions in the United States between Asian accounts and Amherst's broker-dealer affiliate, Amherst Securities Group LP.

Freddie Mac's board of directors has selected Charles E. Haldeman Jr., a top executive at Putnam Investments, to be its next chief executive, according to a source familiar with the matter. "He's the leading candidate," said the source. The nomination has been sent to its regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has yet to act on the pick. Mr. Haldeman would replace John Koskinen, a former Clinton Administration official. Mr. Koskinen replaced David Moffett who took control of the GSE when the government placed it into conservatorship this past fall. In other company news, the GSE said in a new regulatory filing that it received $6.1 billion in new funds from the Treasury Department to help offset its mounting liabilities. Counting the new infusion, the Treasury Department, to date, has given the GSE $51.7 billion to keep its net worth above zero.

The National Association of Mortgage Brokers has elected Jim Pair to be its president for 2009-2010. The announcement came at the trade group's midyear meeting in San Antonio. Mr. Pair, who is from Corpus Christi, Texas, succeeds Marc Savitt, who remains as an officer of the group as immediate past president. The new president-elect is William Howe, Scottsdale, Ariz., who moves up from vice president. The brokerage industry is facing an uphill battle for survival thanks to the credit crisis and the blame placed on third-party originators for poor credit quality. Wholesale production now accounts for about 15% of all fundings compared to 28% three years ago, according to National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

Brenda White, an investment banker who brokered some of the largest mortgage-related M&A deals of the past 15 years, died Sunday after a two-year battle with a rare form of cancer. Born in Monmouth County, N.J., in 1954, she is survived by her husband Tim and a daughter, Adrienne. Ms. White began her career at Dun & Bradstreet, and eventually worked at MBS pioneer Salomon Brothers. In 1994 she was named managing director, head of investment banking to the mortgage industry. According to a statement released by her family, her promotion at Salomon was "perhaps her proudest professional achievement." During her career she also held M&A advisory positions and worked at UBS and Deloitte & Touche before starting her own M&A boutique. Over the years she authored several M&A related articles in industry trade publications including NMN sister publications Mortgage Servicing News and American Banker.

The Senate has confirmed Herbert Allison by voice vote to be a Treasury assistant secretary and run the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which is providing loans and capital to stabilize banks, insurance companies and automakers. The former Fannie Mae president and chief executive also will oversee the Obama administration's loan modification program. TARP is providing funds for incentive payments and to cover some of the costs of the modifications. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Allison told the Senate Banking Committee there is a "great deal of pressure on everyone" to get the Making Home Affordable program going. He stressed that efforts to reach out and contact troubled homeowners will be critical to its success. "People are fearful about losing their homes; fearful of contacting their bank or servicer to describe their problem — for fear that it is going cause a foreclosure on their house," he testified. Prior to his brief stint at Fannie Mae, Mr. Allison was chairman, president and CEO at TIAA-CREF.

Former Sovereign Bank chairman and chief executive officer Jay Sidhu has been named chairman and CEO of New Century Bank, Phoenixville, Pa. Mr. Sidhu, who left Sovereign in 2006, has since been working as industry consultant and also set up a private equity firm called Sidhu Capital Partners. Spain's Madrid-based Banco Santander currently owns Sovereign.