The game of musical chairs for bankers who used to work at UBS Securities LLC continued yesterday, with the confirmed hiring of six bankers, and the unconfirmed placement of a seventh.
Morgan Stanley has added former UBS bankers Geoff Proulx, James McIntyre, and Patrice Mitchell, who will join the firm in its housing group, according to an internal memo obtained by The Bond Buyer. According to the note, written by Stratford Shields, head of public finance for the firm, Proulx is an executive director and will co-head the housing efforts with Kimberly Welsh. McIntyre joins as a vice president, and Mitchell as an analyst.
"In the last six months, Morgan Stanley has been appointed senior manager to six state housing finance agencies," Shields said in the memo. "I believe that our new colleagues will help build our business to make us a significant player in the single-family housing business."
Morgan Stanley also confirmed the hiring of Joan Marron, the former co-head of UBS' health care unit. Marron joins as an executive director and will be joined in the health care business by Barbara Scudder, who has accepted a role as vice president, according to Morgan Stanley.
San Francisco-based Stone & Youngberg LLC, a leading underwriter on the west coast, yesterday announced the appointment of three bankers in California. The regional firm used the opportunity provided by UBS' departure to beef up its public finance utility business.
"We believe in the market out here and we think there are tremendous opportunities going forward because of the infrastructure needs that we have within these markets," said Steve Heaney, a managing director and head of the firm's public finance group. "We have clearly identified the area of utilities as a market segment where we want to grow a presence more than what we already have."
The firm yesterday said it hired Tom Innis as managing director, Jake Campos as assistant vice president, and Matt Tracey as an analyst. The three will join more than 40 bankers in the firm's public finance banking unit.
"When Tom became available, that was a natural fit," Heaney said.
Innis has worked with many large California issuers, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Southern California Public Power Authority, San Diego, Sacramento County, and the state of California itself.
Campos worked with Innis in utilities at UBS and will add overall depth to the firm's efforts with utilities, while Tracey fills a long-term need for the company of a San Francisco based analyst, Heaney said. In the past few months, Stone & Youngberg has advertised for an analyst in the pages of The Bond Buyer.
Stone & Youngberg is the 10th-ranked senior manager for California issuers this year, underwriting 43 deals for total volume of $1.2 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. In 2007, the firm ranked eighth, banking on 153 deals for total volume of $3.6 billion.
Merrill Lynch & Co. has also continued to hire former UBS bankers, with well-known California banker Frank Lauterbur believed to be one of the more recent hires, according to market sources. He is expected to join as many as four or five other former UBS colleagues who made up UBS' west coast team, sources said. The other half of the team was hired by Piper Jaffray & Co. last week.
Speculation about which firm will add the most bankers has been rampant in recent weeks, as UBS announced it would close its muni shop and put as many as 125 bankers on the Street looking for work. Piper Jaffray made headlines with its hiring of nine bankers, and market sources have said that when the hiring ends, Merrill Lynch will likely have added the most of any firm.
"Merrill Lynch will definitely be the wow, they will get more than anybody else," said one source.
In other new hires, Midwest investment bank Stern Brothers & Co. earlier this month announced the hire of David Hosler to the post of chief operating officer. He will be responsible for managing business performance, operations and corporate growth, according to a release.
Hosler joins the firm as COO after giving up his position as chief executive officer and president of GlobalStreams Inc. Prior to joining GlobalStreams, Hosler was president of Century Securities Associates, a subsidiary of Stifel Financial, where he grew an independent brokerage business from very few brokers to more than 100, according to the release.
So far in 2008, Stern Brothers has written 12 deals worth a total of $227.2 million, according to Thomson Reuters.
