Reiter had passions for vintage automobiles and for animals and the environment

Bloomberg
New York


Greg Reiter, Wells Fargo & Co’s head of residential mortgage research who spent more than 25 years specialising in bonds backed by home loans and other securities, has died. He was 52.
He died on October 16 at his home in Middleburg, Virginia, according to a statement from his family provided by Shelley Beason, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based bank. The cause was injuries from an accident.
Reiter, a managing director in Wells Fargo’s New York office, was named to his position in 2012. He joined the bank from Freddie Mac, the McLean, Virginia-based mortgage finance company controlled by the US government, where he was responsible for developing securitisation strategies. Reiter previously was a managing director and head of agency mortgage- backed securities strategy at UK-based Royal Bank of Scotland and held similar positions at UBS Group, the Zurich-based lender, and Amherst Securities Group, based in Houston.
While at UBS, Reiter was ranked the No 1 analyst in both agency structured products and agency adjustable-rate mortgages in Institutional Investor magazine’s All America research team surveys, Wells Fargo said when it hired him.
“Greg was a top analyst in the RMBS space, respected and admired by our clients and team members,” Diane Schumaker-Krieg, Wells Fargo’s New York-based global head of research, economics and strategy, said in an e-mail. “He was the first to raise his hand to help others, always putting their interests ahead of his own. He was an exceptionally kind and caring colleague who will be sorely missed.”
This month Reiter told colleagues he would soon return to the investment side in a position at a recently formed real estate credit fund, according to a person familiar with his plans.
Following the 2008 financial crisis, Reiter was closely engaged with policymakers, investors and banks to discuss the role of private capital in US housing finance and the recovery of the mortgage market. He wrote regularly about recent initiatives of government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to transfer credit risk to private investors.
Gregory James Reiter was born on June 6, 1963, in San Diego, California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Business Administration from its Hass School of Business.
Reiter joined Alex. Brown & Sons, the investment bank that later integrated with Deutsche Bank, in 1993. He moved through other jobs at First Southwest Co, Fahnestock & Co, and Charles Schwab & Co, before joining Houston-based Amherst in 2004, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s website. He moved to UBS the following year and Royal Bank of Scotland in 2010.
Reiter had passions for vintage automobiles and for animals and the environment. Those who worked with him remember he did not wear leather shoes in the office, because of his love for animals and his support of animal rights. Over the years, he adopted two abandoned horses, rescued four dogs and more than twice as many cats.
“We rescued many animals together,” his wife, Alysoun Mahoney, said in a statement. “We went the path of being vegetarian and ultimately vegan together, and for many years have been active supporters of many animal advocacy organisations.”
In addition to his wife of 23 years, his survivors include his sister Elaine Lynne Reiter and father James Anton Reiter.