Austin, TX, November 18, 2008 – Amherst Holdings LLC, a holding company for businesses focused on the mortgage sector, announced today that leading mortgage strategist Laurie S. Goodman will join as a Senior Managing Director in charge of research, risk management and business development, effective December 8, 2008. Ms. Goodman most recently served as Managing Director and Head of Global Fixed Income Research at UBS, where she also ran the Securitized Products Research Group and wrote The Mortgage Strategist, the top mortgage strategy report on Wall Street, for more than 15 years. Ms. Goodman will be based out of the company’s office in New York.

 

Sean Dobson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Amherst Holdings, said: “The partners of Amherst are thrilled to have Laurie join the firm. As the most accomplished analyst within residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), her expertise will greatly enhance our abilities to service institutional investors in the key areas of strategy and risk management.”

 

Laurie Goodman said: “Amherst is extremely well positioned to succeed going forward both because of its reputation as one of the leading dealers in RMBS and also because of the significant capital it raised recently, which will allow the company to grow and take advantage of market opportunities. With primary dealers reducing their commitment to the residential mortgage market, the investment community is shifting to specialist firms. The firm’s recent growth and expansion, coupled with its systems, analytics, superior risk management and strong account relationships, are all qualities that attracted me to the company. Amherst’s platform is one of the best suited to assist clients in these difficult yet opportunity rich times.”

 

Amherst is widely known as one of the foremost providers of U.S. RMBS strategy and analytics. Through a suite of operating companies, Amherst offers brokerage and consulting services to institutional investors in U.S. fixed income with an emphasis on residential mortgages and their derivatives.

 

Ms. Goodman has been recognized repeatedly by the investment community for her work as a mortgage strategist and has earned numerous accolades over the course of her career. She has been highly ranked by Institutional Investor for the past 16 years in numerous categories, including being the top ranked Mortgage Strategy and Agency Structured Products analyst for the past 11 years and #1 in Non-Agency Structured Product for 10 of the past 11 years. She has more #1 rankings than any other analyst in the history of the Institutional Investor Fixed Income polls.

 

Ms. Goodman worked as Head of the Securitized Products Research Group at Paine Webber prior to the UBS-Paine Webber merger. Before joining Paine Webber, Ms. Goodman was Vice President and Head of MBS Strategy at Merrill Lynch. She has also held positions at Eastbridge Capital, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She has published more than 180 articles in popular and professional publications and has co-authored five books on the mortgage industry. Ms. Goodman received a B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.