People News Archives: 2009

LIDs Capital LLC, provider of Liquid Insured Deposits, announced that Walter Cotumaccio joined the company as National Sales Manager and Director. Cotumaccio was formerly Director of Business Management at Prudential Financial and reports to John Drahzal.

American Beacon Advisors recently had to let go a number of sales and marketing professionals, including money fund industry veterans Craig Stevens, Mike Purcell, Leslie Spencer, Blake Zipoy, and Ed Shellinger.

Veteran Evergreen Funds Portfolio Managers Kellie Allen, Bryan White, and Sheila Nye will be departing soon as Wells Fargo consolidates the Evergeen and Wells Fargo Advantage Fund management teams.

Thomas Fennell, formerly with HSH Nordbank and Dexia Bank, has taken a new position as Director, Money Market Sales, Americas, with Standard Chartered Bank in New York.

We were distressed to learn that Martha Sherman, former Portfolio Manager of Nations Cash Reserves, passed away on Tuesday after a battle with cancer. Our deepest sympathies go out to her friends, family and former colleagues. She will be sorely missed. (Click here for the Dallas News obituary.)

Dwight Asset Management is seeking an East Coast sales representative for its new cash management unit. E-mail jdonohue@dwight.com for more info.

We were just told about a "help wanted" notice for a Principal Investment Officer in the Office of the State Treasurer State of Connecticut. The description says the applicant would be, "Responsible for the investment policy, direct investment, portfolio oversight, and administration of the Short-Term Investment Fund (STIF), a $4-5 billion AAAm rated government investment pool, and all short-term investment-related activity of the Treasurer's Office."

Russell Investments is seeking a Senior Fixed Income Portfolio Manager, Short Term Investments for its Investment Division in Tacoma, WA. The description posted on Russell.com says, "The Portfolio Manager will develop and implement investment strategy to attain fund objectives and to adhere with portfolio guidelines as well as contribute to group strategy formulation, idea generation and assume responsibility for trade execution. They will provide input to credit decisions and to identification of new security types."

Matrix Financial Solutions is seeking a Sales Representative for its Money Market Portal service who will focus specifically on the public sector, corporate treasury and non-profit marketplace. Contact Program Manager Michael Rice for details.

Nathan Frederiksen is now a Product Manager for Small Business Deposit Products at Wells Fargo. Frederiksen was previously a Senior Product Manager at Charles Schwab.

Investment News reports that Sun Life Financial Inc. has hired Stephen C. Peacher as chief investment officer. Peacher was previously managing director at Columbia Management, overseeing liquidity strategies and fixed income.

A press release issued today says, "Jefferies today announced the appointment of Ward McCarthy, PhD, as a Managing Director and Chief Financial Economist within the Firm's Fixed Income Group.... Dr. McCarthy will be responsible for analyzing and predicting trends within the government debt and broader fixed income markets globally." Tim Cronin, Head of Jefferies Fixed Income, commented, "We are very pleased to have someone of Ward McCarthy's experience join our global fixed income platform." Dr. McCarthy joins Jefferies after 20 years at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates, a firm he co-founded in 1989, says the release.

As we reported in the August Money Fund Intelligence, Evergreen Investments alumnus Jim Cornelius and Michael Kaicher have joined Capital Advisors Group.

London-based Roxana Mahboubian joined Fitch Ratings as a director in the Fund & Asset Manager Ratings Group specializing in rating money market funds. She had previously been at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and at Standard & Poor's prior to that.

Capital Advisors Group is seeking a Money Market Credit Analyst. The Linked In posting says, "A leading independent manager of institutional cash investments is looking for an intermediate level Fixed Income Credit Analyst. As a member of the credit research team, the Analyst will help facilitate the pre-trade credit analysis, review and approval process. Primary responsibilities include fundamental credit picks and monitoring, prime money fund due diligence, market updates and portfolio reviews. Please email your resume and a writing sample to creditresearch@capitaladvisors.com."

Joel Rosenthal will retire following the sale of mutual fund research and consulting firm Strategic Insight to Asset International. Jim Casella will become the new CEO of S.I., and research guru Avi Nachmany will continue with company's the management team.

John Donohue, Tim Robey, Eric Hiatt, and Bob Swidey, all formerly with Neuberger Berman and Lehman Brothers Asset Management, are now with Dwight Asset Management Company, an asset management arm of Old Mutual Plc.

Mark Rimmer has joined U.K. stockbroker Charles Stanley on the fixed income side. Rimmer was formerly with BlackRock as a Cash Product Specialist.

Ryan Green is no longer with The Reserve. He has joined an alternative investment firm.

Boutique cash manager Capital Advisors Group (CAG) announced that it has hired Bill Crist to the position of Executive Vice President, Business Development. Crist was previously head of institutional money fund sales at Janus Capital Group and distributed institutional money funds with Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company prior to that. Crist tells us, "I'm excited to join Capital Advisors Group and help contribute to the company's established success and continued growth. From my experience in the institutional money market fund and fixed income industries, I'm keenly aware of the need for more transparent short-term investment options, and specifically, products like separate cash accounts that provide a more customized research and liquidity management experience for institutional corporate and municipal investors. I look forward to focusing my efforts on addressing the needs of these underserved organizations while opening new distribution channels and contributing to Capital Advisors Group's development."

A press release says PIMCO has hired Tony Crescenzi as a Senior Vice President, Market Strategist and Portfolio Manager. Crescenzi "joins PIMCO from Miller Tabak + Co where he served as Chief Bond Market Strategist. PIMCO founder and co-CIO Bill Gross comments, "I have been reading Tony's work for more than a decade and have great respect for his market insights and analysis. We are very pleased to have him joining the PIMCO team." Crescenzi is author of the revised "Stigum's Money Market."

Daniel Tronstad has replaced Jamie Jackson as Portfolio Manager of the RiverSource Cash Management Fund and RiverSource Tax-Exempt Tax-Exempt Money Market Fund.

Gail Le Coz has been named IMMFA's first Chief Executive, and the following members were appointed to IMMFA's Board: Mark Allen (Goldman Sachs Asset Management), Greg Brisk (BNY Mellon Asset Management), and Richard Norval (RBS). Chris Oulton (Prime Rate Capital Management) stepped down from IMMFA's Board.

Luminent Capital Management is looking for someone to head the sales and distribution efforts for its new Arrowhead Money Market Fund. Inquiries should be directed to Barry Weiss (barry@arrowhead-funds.com).

Richard Saperstein, Jerry Klein, Nicholas Cifelli and the dozen members of their team, all formerly with the Bear Stearns division of J. P. Morgan, have launched Treasury Partners, an independent advisory platform offering online money market funds trading and discretionary cash management services.

Stephen Monroe has joined RBS as Head of Short Term Market Sales, Americas within its Global Banking and Markets (GBM) division. Monroe is based in Stamford, Conn., and reports to Head of FI Sales, Americas Rich Tang and Global Head of Short Term Market Sales Graham Broyd. Monroe was previously at Barclays Global Investors (BGI).

Elliott Goldstein is a new Senior Account Executive at Financial Northeastern Companies, which "works with banks nationwide to originate billions of dollars of brokered CDs annually" according to the company's website. Goldstein was formerly with The Reserve.

Jared Murphy and Matt Jones have been named Co-Head's of Barclays Global Investors' US Cash Sales Team. They replace Robert Fishbach, who is now Head of the Private Wealth Management Group for iShares.

Clearwater Analytics has hired Matt Clay to focus on Business Development and Institutional Sales. Clay, formerly with Russell Investments, will have responsibility for Clearwater's money fund transparency initiative.

Online money-market trading "portal" Institutional Cash Distributors (ICD) has hired two new salesmen for the European and "offshore" market. Kevin Thompson, formerly of Standard Life and Fidelity UK, is the new Head of Business Development for Financial Institutions, and Peter Woodberry-Watts, is the new Head of Business Development in the Public Sector.

Finacorp Securities has hired Itai Benosh, who was formerly with Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers.

Elliott Goldstein is no longer with The Reserve. Tuesday was his last day.

BlackRock, the fourth largest manager of money market funds, executed a second wave of layoffs last week. No money fund personnel were involved in this latest round.

TheMutualFundWire.com reports that Fidelity is "on the hunt for a money market fund wholesaler" based in the Washington area (citing Fidelity's website).

Bob Arotsky has retired from online money fund trading portal Institutional Cash Distributors (ICD).

Travis Barker of HSBC Global Asset Management has been appointed Chairman of the Institutional Money Market Funds Association (IMMFA), succeeding Donald Aiken.

Peter Knight is no longer with HSBC Global Asset Management.

Patrick Ledford is no longer with The Reserve. Ledford was portfolio manager and chief investment officer.

Chief Financial Officer Patrick Farrell has left The Reserve reports Fund Action.

Fidelity Investments named Anthony Ryan head of asset management strategy and product development reports Investment News.