William O’Keefe was named senior managing director of municipal marketing for Assured Guaranty Ltd., the company said late Thursday. The announcement came just weeks after O’Keefe was appointed head of the municipal desk at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
Cantor’s spokesperson, Melanie Gordon-Felsman, confirmed O’Keefe’s departure via email but would not provide further details.
Assured Guaranty Ltd. — holding company for the bond insurance industry’s two main participants, Assured Guaranty Corp. and Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. — said in a press release that O’Keefe will work to maintain and expand both entities’ working relationships with municipal sales, trading and syndication desks.
O’Keefe will report directly to Sean McCarthy, chief operating officer of the parent company.
“As we further build the market leadership of our two bond insurance platforms — AGM, the municipal-only insurer, and AGC, the diversified provider — we are committed to providing issuers and investors with the most creative and responsive service in our industry,” McCarthy said in the release. “Bill is uniquely qualified to help us achieve that goal.”
O’Keefe will also lead AGC’s and AGM’s retail marketing and electronic platform strategy.
“I am very excited about this opportunity,” O’Keefe said in the release. “I believe that Assured Guaranty is a great company and that this position is a perfect fit for me.”
Prior to his brief stint at Cantor, O’Keefe was head of tax-exempt securities at Morgan Stanley from 1985 to 2005. In the interim he worked for a short time on the buy side at Williams Jones & Associates, an investment advisory firm in New York.
O’Keefe was vice chairman of The Bond Market Association’s municipal securities division in 2005.
He is also a former board member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, and in 2000 he was a founding member of TheMuniCenter LLC — the first electronic marketplace for municipal securities.
