Executive Moves

Commerce Capital Recruits Loukas as Managing Dir.

Commerce Capital Markets has announced that Ronald Loukas has joined the firm as managing director of fixed income, in charge of fixed income sales and trading, as well as derivatives, arbitrage and investment banking.

"With more that 25 years of experience, Ron Loukas is ideally equipped to help Commerce Capital Markets provide the customer-driven service that is synonymous with Commerce Bank's overall model," said Commerce CEO Stan Gregor.

Loukas comes to the firm from FleetBoston Financial, where he was managing director of fixed income. Prior to that, he was a senior vice president at Fidelity Investments.

Separately, Commerce has reorganized a number of people on its investment banking team. Gregory LiCalzi is now managing director and head of the northeast market. David Barr is vice president, responsible for supporting New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. Christopher Kelm is now managing director and head of the mid-Atlantic market. Samuel Bacote is vice president responsible for supporting the Southeast market, and Derek Hansel is managing director heading up the structured finance and derivative products group.

Arbor Promotes Fogel To Senior Vice President

Arbor Realty Trust has promoted Mark Fogel from vice president to senior vice president of asset management. In his new position, Fogel will continue to supervise the assets in Arbor's structured loan portfolio. He will also be responsible for the daily operations in the asset management department, including risk management, disposition strategies, loan value enhancement, borrower relationship management and portfolio and asset writing.

"Mark's tenure with Arbor and his industry expertise have helped him contribute notably to the company's achievements," said Ivan Kaufman, the firm's chairman and chief executive officer. Kaufman added that he is confident that Fogel will continue to contribute to the firm's future growth.

Arbor also announced the recruitment of Carrie Class as vice president of asset management, replacing Fogel. Her responsibilities will be creating and implementing asset management plans for Arbor's structured loan portfolio. She will help senior management with analyzing disposition strategies and will look for portfolio value enhancement opportunities.

Prior to her appointment, Class was senior asset manager at DRA Advisors, the real estate division of Dreyfus. Before that, she was vice president and director of real estate for Vornado Realty Trust.

Placemark Hires Blasing as Executive Vice President

Placemark Investments has hired Richard Blasing as the company's new executive vice president of technology and operations. He will be responsible for overseeing the expansion of the firm's technology infrastructure and staff to meet the company's overlay management services. He will also be in charge of creating unified managed account programs.

"We're delighted that Rich is joining us to help lead our technology strategy and service delivery," said Lee Cheravian, Placemark's chief executive officer.

Blasing comes to Placemark from RBC Dain Rauscher, where he spent most of his career, most recently as head of U.S. brokerage infrastructure and managing director of all infrastructure services. He led a staff of 150 to support more than 5,000 employees in 180 locations.

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