Bond insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. and parent FGIC Corp. said last week chief risk officer John S. Dubel is expected to be named chief executive officer at the next meeting of the board of directors.
Dubel will replace Frank J. Bivona, who has served as CEO of FGIC since 2003. Bivona's contract expires at the end of the year.
Dubel has been FGIC's chief risk officer since the beginning of the year. Prior to working at FGIC, Dubel was a managing director at hedge fund Gradient Partners LP and a managing director at AlixPartners LLC. Through his role as a managing director at AlixPartners - which specializes in turnaround and crisis management - Dubel has held a number of other positions, including chief financial officer at WorldCom Inc.
FGIC has made an effort in recent months to reduce its structured finance exposures, including paying French bank Calyon $200 million to commute $1.875 billion in exposure to collateralized debt obligations of asset-backed securities. In addition, FGIC last month closed on a deal in which MBIA Inc. will reinsure an approximately $166 billion portion of FGIC's public finance book.
"Over the past several months, FGIC and its leadership team have made significant progress in FGIC's recovery and remediation efforts," FGIC Corp. chairman of the board Thomas C. Wajnert said in a statement. "On behalf of the board, I'd like to thank Frank, who was a critical engineer of these endeavors."
