People

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.