Bank of America and Morgan Stanley have each lost top commercial mortgage-backed securities traders. Chris Callahan, the co-head of CMBS trading at BofA, has left to take a job heading Credit Suisse’s CMBS secondary trading business while Ahsim Khan, who headed Morgan Stanley’s CMBS desk, left to take a position at a hedge fund.
Callahan, who will be starting at BofA in the spring after a roughly three-month gardening leave, will be joined by Jonathan Goldberg, who was a junior trader at BofA. Although Credit Suisse has downsized its commercial real estate finance business, the firm wants to tap into steady demand for resecuritizations, including re-REMICs. It also has a legacy portfolio of CMBS assets that it needs to manage.
Callahan and Goldberg have already left BofA and could not be reached. Rich Sigg, who co-headed trading with Callahan, declined to comment. Calls to Credit Suisse were referred to Albert Sohn, head of ABS trading at Credit Suisse, who did not respond to a call or an email by press time. Kahn, who has left Morgan Stanley, didn’t respond to an email and traders there declined to comment.
