CRT Hires 29 Top Sales and Trading Professionals in June

CRT Hires 29 Top Sales and Trading Professionals in June “U.S. Treasury Primary Dealership and Large Mortgage and Asset Backed Franchise are Goals of CRT’s New Investor Group”

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- A group of investors, led by Ben Carpenter, Ron Kripalani, and Jay Levine, recently purchased a controlling interest in CRT Capital Group. CRT (formerly Credit Research and Trading LLC), is a 130-person, 20-year old independent sales, trading, and research firm, headquartered on the harbor in Stamford, CT. This investor group also includes the existing management team of CRT, Chris Young and Michael Vaughn, and many other CRT employees.

Over the past four weeks, CRT’s new management team has hired 29 top sales and trading professionals in anticipation of both a deepening of its existing platform and a significant expansion of product and service offerings to CRT’s institutional client base.

Ron Kripalani, the new CEO of CRT, was the President and CEO of Countrywide Capital Markets from 2000-2008. Ben Carpenter and Jay Levine were Co-CEO’s of Greenwich Capital (later RBS Greenwich Capital) from 2000-2007. Ben Carpenter is the new Chairman of CRT and Jay Levine is a strategic advisor to CRT (while continuing to serve in his position as CEO of Capmark Financial Group Inc).

Credit Crisis Creates Opportunity for CRT

“Over the past two years, the credit crisis has weakened every major Wall Street firm beyond everyone’s imagination and the ability for smaller firms to attract the industry’s best producers and support personnel has never been better,” explained Carpenter. Carpenter goes on to say, “It is CRT’s goal to become the employer of choice in these sales and trading businesses for top professionals who want an entrepreneurial and fun environment where they will be treated with respect and paid objectively for their contributions. Additionally, these same professionals want to be sure that any new firm they join will enable them to provide their clients with the highest level of service. This is exactly the platform that Greenwich Capital uniquely provided to its employees and clients for over 25 years and this is the platform that CRT is very quickly becoming.”

CRT’s Existing and New Product Focus

CRT’s existing business platforms, the sales and trading of High Yield, Distressed, Convertible, and Emerging Market Debt and Equities, were built on its reputation for outstanding research that has continued to be the foundation for the Firm’s success. This success can be measured in terms of the over 900 institutional clients that are approved counterparties and with whom CRT has transacted business with in the past 12 months. Commenting on CRT’s client base Carpenter states, “With the proliferation of new dealers entering the market, being able to grow our new businesses on the strong platform CRT has built over the past 20 years is an enormous advantage. The vast majority of the largest buy-side institutions already know, respect, and transact business with CRT and our clients have been very excited and supportive of our plans to expand our product offerings to them.”

In addition to aggressively growing CRT’s existing Credit and Equities businesses, the Firm plans to focus on the two product areas which are the expertise of the new management team members – Mortgage and Asset Backed products and U.S. Treasuries. Kripalani observes that, “Not only are these the two businesses that Ben, Jay and I grew up in, they are also two businesses with tremendous long-term growth potential.”

The plan for U.S. Treasuries is to apply to become a Primary Dealer, and ultimately become a top 5 Dealer, as quickly as possible. Carpenter observes that, “Starting in 1776, it took the United States 220 years to accumulate a federal deficit of 5 trillion dollars and over the next 3 years alone the deficit is projected to grow an additional 5 trillion dollars. Additionally, as soon as the huge issuance of U.S. Treasuries needed to fund the stimulus programs subsides – even more issuance will then be needed to fund the looming deficits from the inevitable surge in entitlement expenditures driven by demographics in the United States.” As related to the Mortgage and Asset Backed businesses, CEO Kripalani observes that, “There is an historic opportunity in these markets to provide clients with value-added sales and trading advice and execution due to the enormous amount of Mortgage and Asset Backed paper outstanding and the current market dislocations that are certain to continue for many years to come.”

CRT’s Progress and Momentum

CEO Kripalani has a new twist on the old adage that the three most important factors in real estate are “location, location, location.” For Wall Street investment businesses, Kripalani believes that it is all about “people, people, people.” He goes on to elaborate that, “The only way for a sales and trading business to achieve sustainable excellence is to hire, motivate and retain the best professionals and CRT is doing just that.”

Since June 1, CRT has made 29 high profile hires into its existing businesses, as well as into the new Mortgage and Asset Backed and U.S. Treasury businesses.

The single largest group hired has been an eight person U.S. Treasury team that joined CRT from RBS. This is the team that Carpenter worked in for ten years (1987-1997), and managed for an additional ten years (1997-2007), and he commented that, “We feel very fortunate to have been able to hire three of the very best U.S. Treasury traders in the market (Marx Bowens, Bob Moran and Jay Moskowitz) – who were a large part of the record revenues of RBS’s Primary Dealership in 2008 and, even more importantly, each of these three traders never had a negative year trading at RBS/Greenwich Capital during their careers of 16, 18, and 20 years respectively.”

In addition to these three U.S. Treasury traders, CRT hired, from RBS, David Ader and Ian Lyngen who were ranked #1 for Government strategy by Institutional Investor (II’s 1^st Team) in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Ader and Lyngen’s work is the most widely-read and respected commentary in the market reaching over 3,000 clients daily.

Kripalani sums up the mood and optimism at CRT when he concludes, “The combination of our existing employees, our new hires, and our new business model have created an enormous amount of energy and excitement at our Firm. CRT is a very scalable platform that, when combined with our management’s proven track record of hiring and managing top producers, will very quickly create a midsize firm that can compete and win against the majors.”

CRT’s New Hires

Commenting on the recent hirings by CRT, Kripalani states that, “Speaking as a new hire myself, I am very excited about CRT’s future and, speaking on behalf of the Firm, we very much look forward to working with, and working for, our clients as we embark on this new chapter of our Firm’s history.” The following are the 29 top professionals who have joined CRT over the past four weeks.

Senior Management Hires

Ron Kripalani - Chief Executive Officer: Kripalani was President and CEO of Countrywide Capital Markets from 2000-2008. He built Countrywide Capital Markets from a small broker dealer doing $20 million in revenue into a highly respected securities firm generating approximately $1 billion annually. Prior to Countrywide, Kripalani was a Managing Director and Head of Mortgages at Chase Securities and Managing Director and Head of Mortgage Trading at PaineWebber.

Ben Carpenter - Chairman: Carpenter was Co-President and Co-CEO of RBS Greenwich Capital from 2000-2007. As Co-CEO’s, Carpenter and his partner Jay Levine, grew the firm’s revenue from $500 million in 2000 to over $2 billion annually. During the 2000-2007 time period, Greenwich Capital became widely recognized by clients, competitors, and independent consulting groups as a top 3 dealer in both U.S. Treasuries and Mortgage and Asset Backed products. Prior to joining CRT, Carpenter’s most recent position was Vice Chairman of RBS Greenwich Capital.

Treasury Dealership Hires

Marx Bowens - Head of U.S. Treasury and Agency Debt: Bowens leaves RBS/Greenwich Capital as the Head of Macro Trading for the Americas having set revenue records for his seat and their Treasury Dealership in the previous two years. He brings over eight years of market making experience (US Treasuries, Agencies, and European Sovereign Debt), six years of domestic and international Macro and Arbitrage Trading experience, and two years of Risk Management, Internal Reporting and Operations experience to CRT. He will build out CRT’s U.S. Treasury and Agency effort with the goal of being recognized as a Top 5 Primary Dealer.

Robert Moran - Head of Financing: Moran was most recently Co-Head of Short Term Markets and Financing for the Americas at RBS/Greenwich Capital. At RBS, he was responsible for all Short-Dated U.S. Dollar Sales, Trading and Financing. Moran is very well known as one of the most successful Match Book and U.S. Treasury Short-End Traders on Wall Street. He worked in the Fixed Income Trading department of Bear Stearns for six years, prior to joining RBS/Greenwich Capital.

David Ader - Head of Government Bond Strategy: Being ranked #1 by Institutional Investor magazine in the U.S. Government Strategies category (in 2006, 2007 and 2008 at RBS/Greenwich Capital) makes Ader an extremely high profile hire for CRT. Ader’s, and his partner Ian Lyngen’s, work is the most widely-read and respected commentary in the market, reaching over 3,000 institutional clients daily.

Ian Lyngen - Senior Government Bond Strategist: Working with David Ader at RBS/Greenwich Capital, Lyngen’s and Ader’s commentary was ranked #1 by Institutional Investor magazine in the U.S. Government Strategies category (in 2006, 2007 and 2008). Prior to joining RBS/Greenwich Capital, Lyngen worked on the Open Market Desk of the N.Y. Federal Reserve.

Jay Moskowitz - Senior U.S. Treasury Trader: A former 20 year veteran and trader at RBS/Greenwich Capital, Moskowitz was responsible for starting both the STRIPS and TIPS departments there. Prior to that, he worked at Bear Stearns for three years. Moskowitz brings to CRT a highly successful track record as a Trader of U.S. Treasury Products.

Warren Heller - Senior U.S. Treasury Salesperson: Warren is a high performing Salesperson who has spent the past seven years at RBS/Greenwich Capital. Previously, Heller was a top Sales Executive for three years at CSFB, after spending ten years at Goldman Sachs.

Doug Marzonie - Senior U.S. Treasury Salesperson: Marzonie joins CRT from Smith Point Group where he was a partner from 2004-2009. Previously, Marzonie was a highly successful Salesperson in RBS/Greenwich Capital’s Primary Dealership from 1987-2001. Prior to that, Marzonie worked at Salomon Brothers and Bankers Trust in U.S. Treasury Sales.

Anand Ogale - Senior Quantitative Strategist: Ogale comes to CRT from RBS/Greenwich Capital where for the past 12 years he specialized in Quantitative Strategies and Quantitative Modeling. Ogale significantly contributed to the U.S. Treasury Dealership, Interest Rates and Credit Derivatives businesses during his tenure there.

Mortgage & Asset Backed Hires

Bob Eick - Co Head of Structured Product Sales: Eick, a 25 year street veteran, spent the last 16 years at RBS/Greenwich Capital where he was an outstanding producer and Manager in the Asset Backed and Mortgage Groups, running one of their sales teams. He will serve as Co-head of Structured Product Sales with Kevin Clare.

Kevin Clare - Co Head of Structured Product Sales: Clare, a 25 year street veteran, was a Managing Director and Co-Head of Global Sales at Countrywide Securities. Prior to Countrywide, he was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan running Fixed Income Sales for the West Coast. Clare was a Fixed Income Salesperson at PaineWebber prior to J.P. Morgan.

Mike Scanlon - Senior Mortgage Salesperson: Scanlon was most recently employed at Amherst Securities as a Senior Vice President. At Amherst, Scanlon was responsible for Mortgage Sales. Prior to Amherst, Scanlon worked at Countrywide Securities in Mortgage Sales.

Jim Tennille - Senior Mortgage Salesperson: Tennille was most recently employed at Countrywide Securities as Senior Vice President, responsible for Mortgage Sales. Prior to Countrywide, Tennille traded Mortgages at First Union Securities.

Mike Abamonte - Senior Mortgage Salesperson: Abamonte was most recently employed at Countrywide Securities as a Senior Vice President, responsible for Mortgage Sales. Prior to Countrywide, Abamonte worked at Payden & Rygel as a Mortgage ABS Trader.

Mark O’Donnell - Senior Mortgage Salesperson: O’Donnell, A 20 year street veteran, comes to CRT from RBS/Greenwich Capital where he has been a Senior Mortgage Salesperson for the past 10 years. Prior to RBS, Mark was employed at HSBC.

Mark Rudnitzky - Senior CMBS Trader: Rudnitzky brings over 20 years of capital markets experience to CRT. As Senior Vice President at Countrywide Securities, Rudnitzky started and managed the CMBS Secondary Trading business. Rudnitzky was previously Managing Director at Chase Securities, responsible for all New Issue/Secondary Structured MBS Trading businesses. His earlier career includes CMO Trading roles at Lehman Brothers and PaineWebber.

Joe Cesare - Senior Mortgage Trader: Cesare, who was most recently at Countrywide Securities, spent the last 11 years building and running a top rate Mortgage Pass-Through Desk. He will work on building a successful and relevant Structured Products Desk at CRT. Prior to Countrywide, he worked at BZW Capital (now known as Barclays Capital).

Corporate Credit/Emerging Markets/Equities Hires

Robert Heffes - Head of Credit Trading: Heffes is a well known and highly respected industry veteran who will help CRT expand its High Yield trading presence and assist in the build-out of CRT’s High Grade trading team. Prior to CRT, Heffes was Head of High Yield Sales and Trading at Wachovia and Head of High Yield Trading at UBS.

Glenn Hall - Senior Credit Salesperson: Hall is one of the pre-eminent High Grade Salespeople in the industry. Over the past four years, Hall has been a top producer and Managing Director at RBS/Greenwich Capital. Prior to RBS, Hall was a Managing Director and Senior High Grade Salesperson at Lehman Brothers for 12 years.

Kris Deodato - Senior Credit Trader: Deodato was the top producing Trader in the Financials pod at RBS/Greenwich Capital. His specialties are Financials, which include Fixed, Floaters and CDS. Prior to RBS, Deodato was employed at Barclays Capital, Swiss Bank Corporation and J.P. Morgan, running their Investment Grade Trading desks.

Robert Warnock – Senior Fixed Income Salesperson: Warnock is a highly successful Fixed Income Generalist covering Corporates and Treasuries. Most recently, Warnock was a Senior Rates Salesperson at Jefferies. Prior to Jefferies, he was a Senior Salesperson and helped build and establish the NY office for First Tennessee.

John Paulsen - Senior Research Strategist: With his 20 years of experience in the business, Paulsen brings with him to CRT a depth of knowledge in the Financial sector focusing on Banks, Finance and Insurance Companies. At RBS/Greenwich Capital, Paulsen was one of the most highly regarded Financial Strategists in the market. Prior to RBS, Paulsen worked at J.P. Morgan Investment Management and S&P.

Steve Ruggiero - Senior Research Analyst: Ruggiero has over 25 years of experience as a Fixed Income Analyst and is Institutional Investor ranked in four categories during his years at DLJ and J.P. Morgan Chase. Ruggiero joins CRT to focus primarily on the Gaming and Lodging sectors. Most recently, Ruggiero has been on the buy side as a Partner and Senior Analyst at Cyrus Capital Partners. Ruggiero has also held the position of Head of High Yield Research at DLJ, J.P. Morgan Chase and UBS.

M. Jay Cox - Head of Emerging Market Sales: Cox joins CRT to help drive the expansion of the Emerging Market Credit business. Cox was most recently a Senior Trader (Emerging Markets) at Citigroup and has held similar trading roles at RBS/Greenwich Capital and Merrill Lynch.

Richard Guastello - Senior Desk Analyst : Guastello will focus on Merger and Capital-Structure Arbitrage at CRT where he will utilize option and other derivative strategies to maximize returns. Guastello was most recently employed at March Partners, a Hedge Fund in New York, as a Head Trader. Prior to that, he was an Arbitrage Sales Trader at Access Securities.

Credit Risk/Operations/Administration Hires

Tony Becraft - Head of Credit Risk: Becraft was most recently employed at RBS/Greenwich Capital and was responsible for vetting and approving the counterparty risk associated with the firm's trading activities. Prior to RBS/Greenwich Capital, Becraft worked for RBS in London and will bring his considerable knowledge and experience to CRT.

Bryan Burns - Head of Operations: Burns comes to CRT from RBS/Greenwich Capital where he served as Head of U.S. Fixed Income and Equity Operations. Burns was a 22 year veteran of Greenwich Capital and will bring his outstanding experience to CRT.

Lori Beaton - Executive Assistant: Beaton worked as an Executive Assistant at RBS/Greenwich Capital for the past 4 years. During that time, Beaton supported the Co-CEO’s of the firm (Ben Carpenter and Jay Levine) as well as the founder of Greenwich Capital (Ted Knetzger). At CRT, Beaton will work with Ben Carpenter and Ron Kripalani.

About CRT Capital

CRT Capital Group (CRT) provides security brokerage and research services to over 900 institutional accounts with established counterparty relationships around the world. The Firm caters to asset managers, insurance companies, pension funds, hedge funds and investment firms. CRT, formerly known as Credit Research and Trading LLC, was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. For more information, visit www.crtllc.com. For inquiries, contact Lori Beaton at (203)569-4510. [email protected].

CRT Capital Group

Lori Beaton, 203-569-4510

[email protected]

Source: CRT Capital Group

Copyright Business Wire 2009 A group of investors, led by Ben Carpenter, Ron Kripalani, and Jay Levine, recently purchased a controlling interest in CRT Capital Group.