Rice Financial Products announced it added four investment bankers to its roster last week in an effort to expand its presence and distribution network in Florida and Texas.
The New York-based, minority-owned firm has been growing rapidly since mid-2006 when it began transforming itself from a derivatives boutique to a full-service underwriter.
“With a lot of the dislocations that have occurred within the major firms ... we’ve become a lot more robust in terms of our ability to basically go out and pursue underwriting business,” Howard Mackey, president of the broker-dealer division, said recently.
To date this year Rice senior-managed five deals worth $184 million and co-managed 35 deals valued at $991 million, according to Thomson Reuters. The firm is currently ranked 35th among book-runners nationally, up from 58th last year and 78th in 2008.
One of the new hires, Kevin Schuyler, is opening a new Rice office in Tampa, Fla., where he will bring 25 years of municipal banking experience to his new role as managing director.
Most recently Schuyler spent three years in a similar role for BB&T Capital Markets in Tampa. Previously he spent two years at Advest Inc. and eight years as a director of public finance for Raymond James Financial Inc. From 1985 to 1996, he also climbed from public finance analyst to vice president at Smith Barney.
“Bringing Kevin on board will significantly enhance our ability to grow in Florida and the Southeast, which are target markets for our firm,” Don Rice, founder and chief executive officer of the company, said in a press release. The new office will work with an existing team in Miami to “provide even more intensive coverage in the region,” he added.
Rice Financial now has 45 professionals staffing 13 offices, including its main trading desk in Hoboken, N.J., which is also the location of two new hires.
Peggy Carle was brought on board as senior vice president on the sell side. After spending four years as a municipal trader in the early 1980s, Carle developed a specialty in sales serving as a vice president for seven firms from 1985 to 2007. For the past two years she has been a senior vice president of sales with MR Beal & Co.
Miguel Cepeda brings 24 years of financial experience to his new role as operations manager, where he is responsible for the daily operations of sales and trading.
Since 1997, Cepeda has been margin control supervisor at Royal Alliance, a broker-dealer operated by AIG Advisor Group. In that role he supervised 12 employees in the brokerage service. For the previous 11 years he was a margin analyst at Donaldson Lufkin and Jenrette, a financial firm later acquired by Credit Suisse Group AG.
Rice called the Hoboken hires “critical additions to our national sales and trading group,” adding that they will advance the firm’s institutional coverage and underwriting.
Increasing the firm’s coverage in Texas, Karlos Allen signed on as a vice president in Rice’s Houston office. Allen has nearly 10 years of banking experience including five in public finance, most recently as an associate at RBC Capital Markets, and earlier as an analyst for First Southwest Co.
The firm has only senior-managed one deal in the Southwest since 2008.
“We have been looking for the right banker to help us better service the Texas marketplace,” Rice said. “Karlos has the client relationships and technical expertise we need to accomplish our goals in the state.”
Michael Scarchilli contributed to this story.
