Principal, Risk Manager - Residential Real Estate

Position Overview

An indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Apollo Management Holdings, AASP manages the securitized products and structured finance assets sourced and serviced by ATLAS SP Partners while serving as their sole risk manager.

ATLAS SP’s lending business provides financing across three business segments:

• Residential Real Estate

• Commercial Real Estate

• Consumer & Commercial (C&C)

The Role

AASP is seeking a Principal for their growing Credit Risk Management team to be the lead risk manager for the Residential Mortgage Warehouse Portfolio. The Principal will be responsible for conducting both asset level and counterparty level credit reviews and for the continuous review and monitoring of residential mortgage finance exposures in the portfolio.

Reporting to the AASP Chief Risk Officer, the Principal will work closely with Apollo credit professionals, the ATLAS SP Origination teams and other risk leaders within AASP as well as with clients and ATLAS SP key partners. The AASP CRO will rely on this senior risk officer to conduct complete analysis on transactions, highlight risk concerns early and ongoing, challenge the deal teams, gain the expertise in asset classes he/she may not have it in from people who do (utilizing the ecosystem of partners available to ATLAS SP), form an independent risk view, and write a succinct risk memo/analysis. This individual will be a self-sufficient risk manager, handling transactions in a strong and independent way; this includes delivering an informed view to the AASP CRO and other Apollo risk seniors. This candidate will act as an important control function, protecting capital and assessing downside risks.

The ideal candidate will have experience as a Credit Risk Officer in a decision-making role for mortgage and asset-backed financing transactions and is comfortable challenging the status quo and establishing guardrails the business can operate in. Product expertise is required for this role. Residential mortgage collateral includes but is not limited to agency, non-qualified mortgages, business purpose (or investor) loans, single family rental, HELOC and closed end seconds, mortgage servicing rights and servicer advances. The individual will review and assess new and existing transactions (warehouse facilities), facility amendments and renewal requests and monitor the on-going credit quality of the portfolio. 

Primary Responsibilities

• Underwrite risk in each transaction, including evaluating the financing structures, asset risk, the risk profile of the originators and servicers, stress testing and analytics as well as gathering market intelligence

• Accountable for independently making critical risk decisions and acting like an investor to approve transactions within a delegated level of authority

• Demonstrate an ability to challenge the business (sales/portfolio/structuring teams), substantiate support or dissent for a deal and where there is dissent, work with the deal team on structural improvements which might move a transaction from “no” to “maybe/yes”

• Participate in the deal underwriting process from inception and be involved over the lifecycle of a transaction, with greater involvement should asset classes be underperforming, higher risk, less liquid, more esoteric, etc.

• Work with Legal and the deal teams on the loan agreements to ensure that documents accurately reflect the deal structure, economic terms and asset waterfalls

• Work closely with other control function partners including i) Legal and Compliance to escalate and review any reputational or franchise risk considerations and ii) Treasury to evaluate any liability or liquidity considerations.

• Present risk concerns and due diligence findings, make a risk recommendation and answer questions of Investment Committee members or other senior stakeholders

• Produce documentation which includes thorough market, borrower and collateral analysis to support recommendation. This would include but not be limited to understanding and sensitizing stress testing analysis provided by the business and/or obtaining other market intelligence to support risk conclusions and considerations

Qualifications & Experience

• Strong subject matter knowledge of multiple asset classes in the residential sector

• Exposure to more bespoke or less liquid asset classes (venture debt, SME lending, fund finance) is highly beneficial

• Prior experience and responsibility for critical decisions of significant financial impact and complex criteria is a main requirement

• Experience underwriting Corporates from a fundamental credit perspective

• Experience reviewing loa