E-Market Firm Is Hiring

SecondMarket Inc., an online marketplace for illiquid securities, and an affiliate plan to more than quadruple their workforce over the next four years, according to a press release. The Manhattan-based firm, along with Pluris Valuation Advisors, expect to add 367 people over the next five years to their current staff of 90.

When the auction-rate securities market collapsed last year, SecondMarket was one of the firms that stepped in to create a new platform allowing investors to sell the illiquid securities.

It has also created a market for California’s IOUs and provides a platform to sell other securities such as collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities.

Jeremy Smith, the firm’s chief strategy officer, said their current business is expanding and they are also looking at 50 asset classes that they could add to their electronic marketplace, including trust preferred securities and asset sales under Section 363 of the bankruptcy code.

Last week the Empire State Development Corp. and the New York City Economic Development Corp. announced they had awarded the companies up to $1.2 million of grant money, contingent on their fulfilling job-creation targets.

The grant money comes from a U.S. Housing and Urban Development-funded grant program that was created in 2002 to assist downtown businesses following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The firm plans to use to the grant money to fund new hires of marketing, tech and other support staff, and to invest in technology.

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