Verrone has been with Wachovia since 1995 and has served asmanaging director for Wachovia Securities northeastern region,where he was responsible for a number of $50-million mortgages andis known for helping to get mezzanine financing popularized. InSeptember 2007 he was promoted to co-head of Real Estate Americas,where he was responsible for domestic real estate clients,commercial mortgage-backed securities, structured finance, realestate corporate banking, tax credit and agency finance, realestate syndications, and real estate collateralized debt obligationsales and trading.

The news comes one day after Wachovia Corp. nearly doubled itspreviously reported first-quarter loss. The bank is now claiming aloss of $708 million, or 36 cents per share, compared to theirpreviously reported loss of $393 million in mid-April.

Although the loss was attributed to a bank-owned life insuranceportfolio, The New York Times reports that the company isalso experiencing losses associated with the housing slump,including a $121.2-billion portfolio of "option" adjustable-ratemortgages.