As it seeks to continually boost its muni finance operations, Piper Jaffray & Co. has opened new offices in Tennessee and Indiana and increased its head count.
“Looking at the big picture, this is really part of a goal we’ve had at Piper Jaffray,” said Frank Fairman, head of public finance. “We have a strong public finance business and we want to expand that business and create a national franchise.”
Jere McGuffee joins Piper Jaffray as a managing director in the Memphis office and will lead a three-person team. McGuffee has worked in the public finance space for 20 years, most recently at Mesirow Financial. Joining McGuffee in Memphis is Jonathan McCoy, who reports to McGuffee. Whit Moloney also joins the firm as a vice president in Nashville, coming from Morgan Keegan.
The team will not only cover Tennessee, but will focus on clients in Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, and the Southeast.
Fairman said the firm picked Tennessee in part because of the opportunity to hire McGuffee. “I’ve known him for awhile, think highly of him, and think he is a good person to lead and build the business in the Southeast region,” he said.
Opening the Indianapolis office is David Girton, who joins as a senior vice president. He has worked in the financial services industry for more than 25 years and joins from Liger Capital.
Fairman said that while the office in Indianapolis is new, the firm has done business in Indiana before, focusing on health care and higher education. “This is an opportunity to hire someone who is in the state and expand our overall market presence,” he said.
“If you look back in terms of our growth plan, we’ve had a reasonable amount of expansion,” Fairman said. “So this is a continuation of the plan we’ve put in place to grow business and add market presence in other states.”
While new volume is down for the muni market as a whole, it’s safe to say lower issuance isn’t slowing down Piper Jaffray.
“We’re not going to predict that issuance is going to snap back in 2012 from where it was in 2009 and 2010,” Fairman said. “But we’ve been in the public finance business for a long time and set up business to make sense in better times as well as in times where it’s tight. We’re a diverse business geographically, functionally, and in the size and range of deals.”
Fairman added that this year, Piper has conducted deals in a variety of regions with small to medium-sized governments that issue under $20 million, as well as senior managed deals from Harris County, Texas, Houston, and Texas A&M University, which issue $100 million and up.
“So it’s the theme that we do a diverse type of business with different types of bankers with a different focus,” he said.
