Public Financial Management Inc. has hired Alan Spen, a 19-year veteran of Fitch Ratings, to join its public power group and expand its business into power co-ops.
Spen, who has been in charge of Fitch's public power group for about 11 years, has spent much of his 35-year career focused on utilities. PFM managing director Michael Mace said he had worked with Spen on the other side of the table for about 20 years and hired him because of his vast background with public power credits.
"For a lot of our public power clients, with what's going on in the market, credit is increasingly important," Mace said. "Now there's a lot more focus on credit and a lot more differentiation in borrowing costs, so anything Alan can do to help our clients prepare to get to the market and emphasize their strong points and tell their story better will be very helpful."
Spen said that he and PFM had been thinking about the challenges facing co-ops as federal financing dries up at around the same time.
"We kind of had some discussions and a meeting of the minds and I think this is a wonderful opportunity to provide this slice of the market with assistance," Spen said. "There really is not much financial advisory service provided to these co-ops."
He said that power co-ops, which serve rural areas, could be coming to the capital market for as much as $65 billion over the next 10 years.
Spen earned his undergraduate degree in finance at Florida State University in 1972 and began working at Standard & Poor's, where he spent eight years while getting an MBA in 1975 from City University of New York.
After two years in investment banking at Lehman Brothers in their public power group, he went to Merrill Lynch & Co. and then Drexel Burnham Lambert to do municipal research before joining Fitch.
Spen's last day at Fitch is next week and he will begin at PFM in the middle of the month.
