Expanding Loop Adds 10 Muni Pros Across Divisions

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CHICAGO — Chicago-based Loop Capital Markets LLC announced this week it has hired 10 public finance professionals as part of a larger expansion that includes new offices and hires across the firm’s divisions.

The move continues Loop’s efforts to boost market share and staff in the wake of a period of market turmoil that saw the closing or shrinking of many large Wall Street firms. In addition to the new hires announced this week, Loop recently opened two new offices and plans to open more offices and add more staff over the next year, said chief executive officer Jim Reynolds.

“We’re probably in the third inning of a nine-inning baseball game,” he said. “Our market share continues to expand, and there are so many parts of the country that we don’t have a presence in that we’re adding a presence in.”

The minority-owned firm opened offices in Newark, N.J., and Indianapolis earlier this year, adding to new recently opened shops in Charlotte, N.C., and Orlando, Fla. Loop is planning to move into a larger office in New York City and add more staff there, and expand its focus in the Southeast and California, Reynolds said.

“Our goal to be in the top 10 of negotiated, new-issue senior managers,” Reynolds said. “The turmoil in the industry has been significant to us. When the big players begin to shrink, clearly there’s market opportunity for us.”

Many public finance professionals are willing to leave larger firms in part because of dwindling compensation and because shifts in the industry mean that smaller firms can “run the big deals,” Reynolds said. “As we see the rankings this year, we’ll see some of the smaller firms sneaking into the top 10.”

Loop’s ranking as senior manager and co-senior manager has grown steadily over the last 10 years, both nationally and in the Midwest, data from Thomson ­Reuters shows.

Loop this year has served as a senior manager on more than $2.3 billion of debt in 23 issues, nearly as much as the almost $2.5 billion in 19 issues it had in all of 2008. As a co-manager nationwide, the firm succeeded in cracking the top 10 last year, ranking seventh nationally. It has dropped to eighth in 2009, but as in the senior manager category it has already co-managed deals totaling nearly as much so far this year as they did in all of 2008 — $6.9 billion in 460 deals in 2009, as compared to $7.5 billion in 314 deals last year.

Joining the firm in its latest wave of hires is Derek McNeil, who will staff the firm’s newly opened Newark office as managing director. McNeil comes from Siebert Brandford Shank & Co., where he worked for six years. He previously worked at RBC Dain Rauscher and Merrill Lynch & Co. as a financial analyst.

Kenneth Schneider is joining Loop’s New York office as senior vice president. He comes from Banc of America Securities LLC.

Also joining the New York office is associate Jung Im Lee, who previously worked at Merrill Lynch, and analyst ­Rehan Ahmad, moving over from Morgan Stanley.

Of the 10 new hires, four will be joining Loop’s headquarters in Chicago. Won Park will join as associate, coming from Goldman, Sachs & Co. Christopher Caldwell will join as an analyst after working as an intern at Goldman. Tarun Anjan and Jawaun Sutton, formerly interns at Loop, will both join the firm permanently as analysts.

Lauretta Wild will join the firm’s San Francisco office as an associate, joining Nikolai Sklaroff, who opened the office in March. Wild had previously worked as a muni analyst at Citi.

The firm announced five additional hires that will join the corporate investment banking and structured products and fixed-income divisions.

Loop is an investment bank that operates 14 offices with more than 100 corporate and tax-exempt professionals with underwriting, sales, and trading desks in Chicago and New York City. Reynolds, his wife Sandy, and Albert Grace Jr. opened the firm in 1997 with just a handful of ­professionals.

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