Moves in brief

AMERICAS

Barclays builds mortgage platform with Citi hires

Barclays Capital in New York has hired seven senior mortgage backed traders and salespeople from Citigroup.

Tom Hamilton, who had been with Citigroup for 15 years, has joined as managing director and head of mortgage trading.

"We all feel that this move jump starts Barclays' entry into the mortgage arena," Hamilton told SFI News.

Two others traders join as managing directors: Scott Wede, who at Citigroup focused on trading Ginnie Mae securities, and Levent Kahraman who traded collateralised mortgage obligations.

Chris Leslie also joins as managing director responsible for MBS sales in the US, after 14 years in MBS sales at Citigroup. He will report to Barclays Capital's head of distribution in the Americas, John Stathis.

Steve Cozine joins as director and senior collateralised mortgage obligation (CMO) trader and structurer after eight years at Citigroup, most recently as head of non-agency CMOs. He will report to Levent Kahraman, head of CMO trading.

David Finkelstein, who will concentrate on trading Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities, joins as director, as does Chris Flammia, who will focus on using quantitative analysis in mortgage trading.

Steven Molitor and seven members of his securitisation team from Morgan Lewis & Bockius have joined Dechert. Molitor was chair of Morgan Lewis & Bockius' securitisation practice and becomes a partner at Dechert. Molitor, who started in June, will have offices in Philadelphia and New York.

When Molitor moved from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy in New York to join Morgan Lewis and Bockius 12 years ago he was approached by Dechert but decided against joining the firm then.

Eric Iversen is joining the New York office and counsel Joseph Gatti will join in Washington. Other members of the team, Ralph Mazzeo, Laurie Nelson, Eric Nicodemus and Tara Walker will join as associates in the Philadelphia office. Sholom Sittner will join as a tax associate in New York.

"We had been looking for some time to add some depth to our practice and this group are particularly strong in RMBS both public and private deals," Malcolm Dorris, head of Dechert's securitisation practice, told SFI News.

Molitor specialises in RMBS and other mortgage related assets.

"Dechert mostly has done private transactions and now we are...