Tracy Collins (neé van Eck), senior managing director and head of collateralized debt obligation research for Bear Stearns, is switching to Bear Stearns Asset-Backed Securities Fund, an ABS hedge fund that she says is independent from Bear Stearns although Bear Stearns is a majority partner. Van Eck says she made the move to get a real two-days a week position and be a mother, as her hope to work part-time in her former CDO research slot turned out to be a five-days a week job. CDO research will be covered for now by Gyan Sinha, senior managing director, who is currently in charge of asset-backed securities research.
As head of CDO research, she reported to Leslie Goldwasser, senior managing director and the head of the CDO group for the firm. She was a runner up in the CDO research category in the 2001 Institutional Investor All-America Fixed-Income Team.
As a buysider, Collins will keep her senior managing director title but will focus on ABS investments instead of CDOs. She will do research and work with Frank Collins, her husband, a senior managing director and a consultant for the fund, to whom she will also report. Frank Collins had been head of ABS trading for Bear Stearns prior to his May 2000 departure to set up the hedge fund, which at that time was the first fund whose investment orientation was centered around structured products. Sinha declined comment and referred calls to Russell Sherman, a spokesman with Bear Stearns, who did not return calls at press time.