Markit Group, the London-based provider of OTC derivatives trade data, valuation and processing services, has appointed James Savitsky and Thomas Geraghty as Directors within its Asset-Backed Securities (ABS) sales and product development team.
Savitsky will co-ordinate Markit’s ABS sales effort globally, distributing the firm’s data and analytics services for the structured finance markets. He brings to Markit experience of developing and distributing specialist products for the North American and European ABS markets, with particular expertise in the Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) market. Savitsky joins from Trepp, where he headed sales and business development for the firm’s CMBS platform.
“Jim is widely recognised as an industry thought-leader with deep customer relationships that have been developed over more than 10 years of experience in the ABS market,” says Michael Rushmore, Executive Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing at Markit. “We are delighted that Jim has joined the Markit team to help shape our customer-focused vision for the future of structured finance services.”
Geraghty joins Markit’s North American structured finance product development team, with a specific focus on data and the modelling of structured securities. Prior to joining Markit, Geraghty was a Managing Director at Wall Street Analytics, where he was responsible for product development. Geraghty began his career as a mortgage-backed securities trader at JP Morgan where he spent six years structuring, pricing and marketing new issues.
“Tom is a valuable addition to our ABS specialist team,” says Kevin Gould, Executive Vice President and Head of Data Products and Analytics at Marki. “He brings 17 years of structured finance experience to Markit, and will help us meet the burgeoning demand for efficient, accurate means to track and analyse the global ABS market, both cash and synthetic.”
Savitsky and Geraghty will both be based in New York. Markit says the appointments are evidence of its commitment to providing the structured finance markets with data and analytics to improve transparency and efficiency. Last week, Markit acquired ABSReports, an ABS deal reporting service. In August 2006, the company acquired Chasen Enterprises, a provider of deal modelling for structured securities. Last year also saw Markit launch ABX and CMBX, the widely traded synthetic ABS and CMBS indices, in conjunction with the dealer consortium CDS IndexCo.