Wells Fargo Securities has expanded its Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) platform. The RMBS group now provides a full suite of advisory, structuring, research, distribution and trading services to residential origination and investing clients and to residential mortgage originator Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM).

Wells Fargo Securities has added a number of key hires to oversee the business.

Mike Buttner has been appointed the head of RMBS. A 19-year veteran of Wells Fargo, Mr Buttner was most recently responsible for managing the hedging activities of WFHM’s servicing rights and pipeline/warehouse assets. He will report jointly to Tim Mullins, head of fixed income trading and Julie Caperton, head of asset backed finance and securitization, two divisions within the securities and investment group.

Reporting to Mr Buttner are Doug Lucas, head of residential mortgage trading, and Dash Robinson, head of residential mortgage finance structuring and lending. Mr Lucas has more than 20 years of experience managing residential risk and most recently ran structured products trading in London for Bear Stearns. Mr Robinson was previously responsible for the execution, surveillance and restructuring oversight of Wells Fargo’s structured finance transactions.

Mr Mullins said: “Wells Fargo’s dominance in mortgage origination combined with strong investor demand for all types of residential product made this an obvious area to expand within Wells Fargo Securities. We are excited to have the in-house capabilities in place to offer these services to our mortgage company in addition to our external originating and investing clients.”