Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. further bolstered its New York office with three former UBS bankers and one former JPMorgan analyst over the past month. The firm also added a former UBS banker to its Chicago office.
Suzanne Shank, president and chief executive officer of the firm, said that the demise of UBS' public finance practice and the merger of JPMorgan and Bear, Stearns & Co. had been an "extremely big opportunity" to scoop up new hires.
"We're looking to increase our market share," Shank said. "To continue to do big deals all over the country and complex transactions, you need to be sufficiently staffed."
Siebert Brandford has added 16 hires since the beginning of the year, bringing its staff up to about 65 people, she said. Ten of those new hires have been in its New York City headquarters.
The firm, which only works in public finance, has not had to deal with the credit problems that larger banks suffered from, she said, adding, "We're poised to be among the more stable players on the street."
The New York office added three people from UBS. Mark Price came over from the UBS derivatives desk. Price, a Harvard Business School graduate, worked at UBS for six and half years and has also worked on the issuer side, for Atlanta. Price is now a vice president. Andress Appolon was hired as a senior associate after working at UBS as a banker covering Northeast deals, mostly in New York and Connecticut. Sarah Snyder, who had worked primarily on structured banking related to pension and other post-employment benefits in New York and nationally was also hired as a senior associate.
Nicole Stallings, a former JPMorgan analyst specializing in the Northeast, joined the New York office as an analyst.
As a minority-owned firm, Siebert Brandford Shank is positioning itself to take advantage of potential opportunities due to New York Gov. David Paterson'sJune executive order designed to increase participation by minority firms at the senior manager level on bond deals. Some of the new hires had experience working with the Empire State Development Corp. and the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, issuers that sell state-backed debt and are covered by the executive order.
"While we are very excited about the opportunities in the state, we also feel our already strong expertise was complemented by the addition of these professionals," Shank said. "We happen to be a minority-owned firm but we're definitely going after the big deals."
Osee Pierre was hired as a vice president after working as a banker in UBS' health care group for eight years. He is relocating to Chicago from New York City.
The firm senior managed $3.56 billion of deals nationally last year, making it the 16th ranked firm, according to Thomson Reuters data. The firm has steadily increased its volume both as senior manager and co-manager since 2004 when it senior managed $1.92 billion. The firm was ranked 12th in the Northeast last year among senior managers. So far this year it has senior managed $1.74 billion of deals.
