Deutsche Bank is combining its subprime, home equity and prime mortgage origination efforts under Neil Ahuja, head of mortgage-backed securities. The move is partly to acknowledge Ahuja’s strong performance and also because of the convergence of the subprime and prime sectors. “The view is there’s more synergy having prime and subprime loans under the same umbrella,” said an official close to the firm.
Ahuja previously was responsible for agency and private label collateralized mortgage obligations, hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages and mortgage derivatives but did not have responsibility for mortgage origination. Now Michael Commaroto, head of private label mortgage-backed securities and whole loan trading, will report to Ahuja instead of Richard D’Albert, global co-head of the securitized products group. The other parts of the structured products group, such as collateralized debt obligations and secondary asset-backed securities trading, will remain unaffected, the official said.
Commaroto, D’albert and Michael Raynes, co-head of the securitization group, did not return calls. Ahuja did not respond to an e-mail by press time.