Knight Expands ABS/MBS Capabilities in Commercial Real Estate

JERSEY CITY, N.J. and GREENWICH, Conn., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Knight Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE Euronext: KCG) today announced an expansion of ABS/MBS capabilities in commercial real estate finance with the hiring of Barry M. Funt and Winston G. van Buitenen as Managing Directors.

The Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Finance team will leverage Knight's institutional fixed income platform to originate real estate loans for leased-backed and project financings of all types. The team will provide creative structuring advice on transactions that seek to achieve both the economic and qualitative project goals of participating landlords and tenants.

"Barry and Winston bring considerable experience to Knight in the CRE market," said Ronak Khichadia, Managing Director, Global Head of ABS/MBS at Knight Libertas. "Using Knight's extensive client network of leading buy-side firms, they will be able to execute across the credit spectrum, undertake both large and small transaction sizes, structure taxable and tax-exempt real estate financings, and flexibly tailor structures to meet project objectives."

Knight provides buy-side firms with research, sales and trading across a broad range of fixed income securities. Knight trades on a client-driven basis in securities that include High Yield/Distressed, Investment Grade/Crossover, Bank Loans, ABS/MBS, Convertibles, Municipals, Taxable Municipals and Corporate/Sovereign Emerging Markets Debt. Knight Research publishes reports using capital structure valuation and data-driven analytics to provide buy-side clients with information and insight on public and private companies.

Biographies

Barry F. Funt

Managing Director, Commercial Real Estate Finance

Knight Libertas LLC

Barry Funt is a Managing Director, responsible for commercial real estate finance.

Prior to joining Knight, Mr. Funt spent nine years at Natixis Real Estate Capital (formerly known as CDC/IXIS) where he helped build the firm's commercial real estate finance unit. Prior to Natixis, Barry was the General Counsel of Nomura Securities International's commercial real estate finance business. Before joining the commercial real estate finance group, Barry worked on the repo desk and engaged in both treasury repos as well as whole-loan gestation repo financing. Barry started his career as an associate at Thacher Proffitt & Wood and Donovan Leisure Newton and Irvine.

Barry received a juris doctorate from the New York University School of Law and a bachelor of arts in politics from Brandeis University.

Winston G. van Buitenen

Managing Director, Commercial Real Estate Finance

Knight Libertas LLC

Winston van Buitenen is a Managing Director, responsible for commercial real estate finance.

Mr. van Buitenen was the co-founder and Managing Director of Allegiance Investment Advisors, LLC which specializes in all forms of credit based real estate lending including CTL, mezzanine, tax-exempt bond offerings and public incentivized financing structures.  Mr. van Buitenen was a founding member of The Norseman Group, LLC, a structured finance firm focused exclusively on providing first lien and secondary debt solutions to acquirers and owners of credit tenanted commercial net lease properties. Previously, Mr. van Buitenen held senior roles at Sony, where he led several large-scale integration and real-estate projects, Loews Theaters, as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and at Price Waterhouse.

He has a bachelor of science in accounting from Fairfield University and is a New York State certified public accountant.

About Knight

Knight Capital Group, Inc. (NYSE Euronext: KCG) is a global financial services firm that provides market access and trade execution services across multiple asset classes to buy- and sell-side firms. Knight's hybrid market model features complementary electronic and voice trade execution services in global equities and fixed income as well as foreign exchange, futures and options. The firm is the leading source of liquidity in U.S. equities by share volume. Knight also offers capital markets services to corporate issuers. Knight is headquartered in Jersey City, NJ with a growing global presence across the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. For more information, please go to www.knight.com.

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SOURCE Knight Capital Group, Inc.