Opalesque Exclusive: Asset backed securities trading increases on the secondary markets

Alternative Market Briefing

Opalesque Exclusive: Asset backed securities trading increases on the secondary markets

Thursday, September 10, 2009

From Kirsten Bischoff, Opalesque New York:

Activity in the secondary markets for asset-backed securities has increased significantly over the past month, a representative for Beacon Capital Markets told Opalesque. The New York-based firm offers clients an electronic platform for the buying and selling of mortgage backed and asset backed securities, and announced the expansion of its senior team with two new hires in anticipation of further growth in these markets. It counts hedge funds amongst its active clients and has seen an increase in interest from managers as the platform recently expanded to include non-agency MBS, ABS and CMBS.

David Weisberger, founder of Watch Hill Investment Partners will join the team as Co-CEO alongside Beacon founder Norman Epstein. Weisberger grew Watch Hill to $1bln in assets and returned annualized profits of approximately 20% over a decade.

The firm also announced the addition of John Knox, formerly of Bear Stearns & Co, who joins Beacon as Managing Director of Sales and Marketing.

Hedge funds, which make up a portion of Beacon's client base have had large success in asset-backed investing through 2008, returning +15.21% YTD compared to losses of 3.42% in 2008 (according to HFRI).

CIC sees an entry point in asset-backed area Inflows into the asset backed securities space may soon increase as large investors begin to dip their toes back into the US real......................

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