People: Eastern Union Promotes Lipoff, Merchants Capital Hires George

Eastern Union Promotes Lipoff to Lead Banking Division

Eastern Union, Brooklyn, N.Y., promoted Jacob Lipoff to lead the company’s newly centralized QTS Banking and Capital Markets Division.

Lipoff will manage the firm’s full scope of banking relationships as Executive Managing Director.

Until now, Eastern Union’s banking relationships had been managed by wholly owned subsidiary QTS Services. By creating this division, Eastern Union brought this component of the business in-house.

The QTS Banking and Capital Markets Division will match transactions with appropriate banks and lenders through three primary strategies. First, the unit will maintain ongoing and substantive dialogues with lenders. Second, lender matchmaking will factor in the experience of each particular broker managing a transaction. And third, with the help of the firm’s artificial intelligence assets, the division will analyze extensive data covering banks’ recent lending activity. 

Merchants Capital Hires Former Freddie Mac Senior Director George

Mortgage banking company Merchants Capital today announces the hiring of Dwayne George as Executive Vice President, National Head of Production.

George previously held positions at Greystone and Northmarq, but most recently, at Freddie Mac as Senior Director of Target Affordable Housing Production where he managed the Freddie Mac Optigo® Lender Network – a platform that consists of 19 lenders that is responsible for originating $6 billion of annual affordable housing production.

Prior to joining the production team, George served as a Senior Underwriter in Freddie Mac’s Target Affordable Housing Group, where he was responsible for obtaining and granting credit approvals for LIHTC Preservation, Section 8, Bond Credit Enhancements, Moderate Rehabilitations and Extended Use loans totaling $300-$400 million in annual production.

During his first three years at Freddie, he orchestrated the purchase of $920 million in Freddie Mac Target Affordable originations, which included the firm’s largest Target Affordable Housing Capital Markets Execution transaction, the first Short Term Bond Execution and the first Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion.

In his new role at Merchants Capital, George will lead the company’s sales team, where he will work closely with Merchants’ sales office leads in New York, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Indianapolis and Chicago.