Lewis Ranieri's latest venture

Remember Lewis Ranieri? He's credited with the phenomenal rise of the mortgage-backed market. His exploits at Salomon Brothers were humorously recounted in the Wall Street class's Liar's Poker. He's been active on Wall Street ever since, in lower profile roles. Now he is running an Internet business called Root Markets that links consumers with lenders, thrifts and commercial banks, bypassing mortgage brokers, according to Investment Dealers' Digest. The plan is to make the service available from multiple consumer sites. This is an idea that has cropped up many times, especially back in the dot.com era, when disintermediation was the rage. But perhaps Ranieri and his partner, Marcia Myerberg, will be able to make it happen. We'll see.  

For more:
- here's the Investment Dealers' Digest article

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- Mortgage-backed securities still hot