BlackRock lands Treasury’s Fisher

Peter Fisher, former undersecretary of the US Treasury, has joined BlackRock as managing director and a member of the firm's management committee. Fisher will work to build the company's investment and risk management business and will have primary responsibility for expanding the balance sheet advisory services the firm offers to public and private financial services organizations worldwide.

Fisher's primary responsibility at the US Treasury was for US debt management. Previously, he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he was responsible for all the Federal Reserve's open market and foreign exchange operations.

Additionally, while at the Federal Reserve, Fisher was involved in encouraging a private sector resolution of the failure of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 and in resolving the extraordinary year-end pressures in money markets in connection with Y2K.

"I am tremendously excited to be joining the BlackRock team, which has long demonstrated a commitment to working with clients to solve complex financial challenges utilizing the firm's established investment management and risk management capabilities," Fisher said in a release. "I am eager to begin working with my new colleagues to build on the successes they have already achieved.

SG promotes Taddonio

SG Corporate and Investment Banking, a division of French bank Societe Generale, has hired Paolo Taddonio as head of debt finance for the Americas. After 15 years with the bank in various positions, Taddonio is relocating to SG Corporate and Investment Banking's New York office from London.

Prior to his recent appointment to the Americas, Taddonio was co-head of the global foreign exchange and treasury product line. In New York, Taddonio replaces Pierre Schroeder, who recently left the bank to pursue other interests, and he will report to global head of debt finance, Marc Breillout.

In his new position, Taddonio will oversee SG's capital market and financing businesses in the region. This will include the firm's activities in syndicated loans, bonds, securitizations, structured finance, structured credits, foreign exchange, treasury and interest rate derivatives.

Breillout says the move is part of SG's push to expand its debt finance capabilities in the Americas. "Paolo is a talented professional with an in-depth knowledge of the bank. His experience and leadership skills will be highly valued as we develop our debt finance activities in this region and further our strategy of providing integrated global debt finance solutions," he says.

Fitch’s CDO boost

In a move to provide greater depth of performance analysis for collateralized debt obligations, rating agency Fitch Ratings has made three key appointments in its US-based CDO group, including the creation of two new positions: head of performance analytics and head of credit products research.

John Schiavetta, head of the agency's CDO group, says: "These hires are part of our commitment to bring greater transparency to the collateralized debt obligation market. Fitch is enhancing its ability to provide investors in CDOs with more analytical tools as well as innovative and proactive research."

Marion Silverman becomes head of performance analytics. In this new role, Silverman will develop enhanced performance analytics tools and system infrastructure and oversee the CDO transaction review process. She will also coordinate Fitch's CDO asset manager rating process.

Hedi Katz fills the new position of head of credit products research. Katz will oversee the development of research and research products while ensuring the consistent development and application of criteria across the credit products group. John Malysa joins Fitch's CDO group to head up the cashflow CDO transaction team. Malysa is transferring from the commercial mortgage-backed securities team where he also led Fitch's approach to rating CDOs of CMBSs.

Jill Zelter, a member of the CDO team, says: "The new organization of the CDO group will allow Fitch to provide comprehensive and timely surveillance, rigorous analysis and prospective opinions on future trends in a more dynamic way."

Also on the move...

• Nomura Securities International has hired Donald MacKinnon as managing director and head of structured credit trading and asset finance. MacKinnon, who will report to Najib Canaan, head of fixed income, will be responsible for managing the firm's commercial mortgage-backed, residential mortgagebacked and asset finance business. Previously, MacKinnon was president and chief executive officer of Realm Business Solutions, a private company that provides software and services for the commercial real-estate community. MacKinnon also was co-head of CMBS origination and securitization at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette.

• Barclays Capital has announced the appointment of Mitch Jacaruso as director, responsible for callable agency bond trading. Jacaruso will report to Mike Yarian, head of US dollar-based agency, supra and sovereign trading. Jacaruso goes to Barclays from Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was a callable agency trader. Prior to that, he was head trader of callable agency securities at Morgan Keegan.

• The Bond Market Association has elected Ryan Marshall, global director of fixed-income credit research at Morgan Stanley, and Micah Green, president of the Association, to the Association's board of directors, the BMA has announced. Marshall will serve as the vice-chairman of the association's corporate credit markets division.

• Richard Weill, vice-chairman of MBIA, has announced that he will retire in the spring. Associated with MBIA since 1974, Weill played an integral part in the formation and management of the monoline insurer. He was most recently responsible for insured portfolio management, fixed-income investor relations and government relations at the company.Weill's responsibilities will be assumed by Mitchell Sonkin. Sonkin is a senior partner and co-chair of the financial restructuring group at law firm King & Spalding.

• Fiduciary Trust, the US asset manager subsidiary of Franklin Resources, has appointed Jeffrey Applegate as chief investment officer, taking the place of Jeremy Biggs who is stepping down after 25 years in the position. Applegate will be responsible for providing overall investment direction for the firm’s institutional and high net worth clients, as well as chairing the firm’s global investment committee and investment policy committee. Prior to his new appointment, Applegate was running Jeffrey Applegate & Company, which provided analysis on US asset class returns and allocation.

• Satish Nandapurkar has left the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to join Eurex. He becomes chief executive of Eurex US and will work alongside Michael McErlean, sales director. Nandapurkar will help Eurex extend its presence in the US futures markets. At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Nandapurkar headed products and services.

• Stephen DiTursi, a 19-year veteran of Wall Street and the corporate bond business, has joined inter-dealer broker Maxcor Financial to head its institutional corporate bond sales, trading and research businesses. His responsibilities will include building an institutional highgrade corporate bond group and overseeing the company's existing highyield and distressed corporate bond efforts. DiTursi joins Maxcor from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, where he was head of corporate bond trading.

• Broker-dealer Links Securities has hired mortgage market veteran Matthew Weinberg to co-head the firm's mortgage-backed securities trading desk, alongside Ted Murphy.Weinberg, formerly with Greenwich Capital in its arbitrage trading group, replaces former head trader George Sykes, after the announcement of his move into investment management. Sykes, a founder of Links, has joined the fixedincome management group of Links affiliate Guggenheim Partners.