Stern Brothers Open Calif., Nevada Offices

SAN FRANCISCO — St. Louis-based Stern Brothers & Co. announced the opening of two new public finance offices Monday in Sonoma, Calif., and Reno, Nev., as part of a plan to double in size the next two years.

The investment bank has hired the father and son duo of Dennis ­Ciocca and Andrew Ciocca to help staff the new locations. Dennis Ciocca will be a senior vice president and open the ­Sonoma office. His son is a vice ­president and runs the Reno location

Stern Brothers has 10 other offices in St. Louis, Kansas City, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle, and Tampa, Fla.

It opened the Detroit and Seattle locations earlier this year.

Chief operating officer Tim Hosler said the company plans to double in size the next two years. It already plans to expand in the Southwest with a new office in a major city and to build out its Tampa office, he said.

“We have seen some pretty significant growth and are in a transitional phase,” Hosler said. “Our current owner and husband, the Finns, are very interested in building the firm to be substantially larger than when they acquired it.”

Pepe Prince Finn is the chairman and chief executive officer at Stern Brothers and her husband Terrence Finn is president. Pepe Finn acquired a majority stake in the 92-year-old company from her husband in 2007.

Stern Brothers’ revenue rose by 10% last year to $9.5 million from $8.4 million in 2008. Revenue of about $12.5 million is expected this year, Hosler said. The firm has doubled in size since 2007.

He said the firm is especially interested in expanding the municipal finance sectors of housing, higher education, water and sewer, renewable energy and local governments.

Dennis Ciocca has more than 40 years experience providing financial services to public agencies in California, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Oregon.

Andrew Ciocca has 10 years of experience on underwriting teams that have worked with the state of California and redevelopment agencies in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Stern Brothers started the year by hiring four new employees for its analytic group, institutional sales team, and health care banking group.

Stern officials announced at the time that the firm was in the market to add seven to nine senior bankers and ­another three to five junior bankers.

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