Wachovia Securities LLC hired former Bear Stearns Cos. executive Craig Overlander as a managing director and global head of fixed income, effective Sept. 15.

Overlander (pictured) will report to Ben Williams, head of global markets and investment banking and will work from Charlotte, N.C., and New York. Overlander was a managing director and co-head of fixed income at Bear Stearns, where he spent
26 years.

Also, Banc of America Securities LLC's chief investment strategist, Tom McManus, joined Wachovia as chief investment officer and director of advisory services.

As part of a larger restructuring to recover from write-downs, UBS grabbed Goldman, Sachs & Co. banker Carsten Kengeter as global head of the fixed income, currencies and commodities business within its investment bank.

Kengeter will relocate from Hong Kong to London and report to Jerker Johansson, chairman and CEO of UBS Investment Bank, and will join the investment bank's executive committee and the UBS group managing board. When he joins the firm in early 2009, Kengeter will take over FICC from Johansson, who will continue to manage the business on an interim basis until then.

Kengeter was a partner and co-head of Goldman Sachs' securities division for Asia ex-Japan, responsible for all FICC products. He joined GS in 1997.

Fixed income fund management firm Pimco is making Mohamed El-Erian sole CEO of the company. After 15 years as CEO, Bill Thompson will retire at year's end. El-Erian, who returned to Pimco in January, will continue as co-chief investment officer with Bill Gross.

Middle-market investment bank FBR Capital Markets Corp. launched a new convertible securities unit. The firm made six hires for its sales and trading team: Managing directors Robert Meringolo and Thomas Sugiura, senior vice presidents Adam Wachter and John Wright, and vice presidents Charles Ng and Ronald Schulhof.

Meringolo, Sugiura, Wright and Schulhof most recently worked at Bear Stearns Cos. Wachter joins from Morgan Stanley and Ng worked at KBC Financial Products.

Also, vice president Louis Yi, who worked at Bear Stearns, joined the equity-linked securities investment banking team.

Bear Stearns' former senior managing director and global head of convertible trading Michael Lloyd recently joined FBR as a senior managing director and head of convertible securities within the sales and trading division. Lloyd launched the convertible securities unit with Paul Rosica, who also joined from Bear. Rosica is a senior managing director and head of equity-linked capital markets in investment banking.

In London, Morgan Stanley appointed Benjamin Babcock as a managing director and head of restructuring for EMEA. He comes in from Merrill Lynch & Co., where he was head of European restructuring for two years. Babcock also worked for Lazard in its restructuring group with responsibilities in Canada and Europe and was a partner at Ernst & Young.

New York's Churchill Financial Group said David Heilbrunn joined the firm in a new post: Senior managing director, head of corporate strategy and development. Most recently, Heilbrunn was a senior managing director and CDO group head for Bear, Stearns & Co.'s structured financial products group. Before that, he spent 12 years with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Heilbrunn will be responsible for mergers and acquisitions, joint venture and strategic alliances, launching product offerings, managing banking and investor relationships and coordinating future capital raising activities.

Cowen Group Inc. tapped Laura Champine as a senior analyst, covering the consumer sector. Champine joins Cowen from the New York office of Morgan Keegan & Co., where she spent seven years.

C. Robert Paul joined DLA Piper's corporate and finance practice as counsel to the alternative asset management group in New York. Paul was general counsel to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

From 2005 to 2007, he served as executive vice president and general counsel of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the Philadelphia Board of Trade.

Earlier in his career, Paul was in-house counsel to Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. from 1987 to 1997, Credit Suisse Group from 1997 to 1999 and Cargill Inc. from 2004 to 2005.

Crowell & Moring LLP announced that Olivier Antoine joined its New York office as a counsel in the antitrust group. Antoine arrives from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and domestic and international antitrust matters.

McDermott Will & Emery LLP brought in Stefan Schmitz to its London office as a partner in the firm's energy and infrastructure group, specializing in renewable energy, particularly wind and solar energy projects. Schmitz joins from Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP.