BRADENTON, Fla. — With an eye toward expansion, Memphis-based FTN Financial Capital Markets recently hired six new traders and sales professionals for its muni division.
The new hirings represent a significant step in the continued growth of FTN Financial’s general market municipal bond business, which includes an established bank-qualified muni group with a broad distribution network that will assist in penetrating the broader bond market further, company officials said.
Municipal bond specialists Jack Flynn, Mark Droumbakis and Pat Gray have joined FTN in institutional sales.
Flynn and Droumbakis each have more than 20 years of experience with Citi, while Gray has more than 18 years of experience in Morgan Stanley’s municipal sales group.
Three new traders have been hired to work under Mike Allen, who was brought in to head the municipal products group last year.
Hank Tansey, who formerly worked for Morgan Keegan & Co., has nine years of experience in bank-qualified underwriting and trading.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, who last worked at BB&T, has more than 20 years of experience and will trade in the general market sector with maturities 20 years and longer, as well as institutional taxable munis.
JP Zaptin, who last worked at Prager & Co., will focus on the general market sector with 10- to 20-year maturities.
“We are fortunate to add such high quality and experienced personnel to our dedicated municipal group,” said trading manager Tim Romanow. “We believe this will be a tremendous growth area in our fixed-income business.”
The firm’s municipal desk now has a total of 10 traders and underwriters, he said.
FTN anticipates additional hirings in trading, sales, underwriting and credit analytics, according to president Michael E. Kisber.
“Our focus on the municipal bond sector represents a very important strategic initiative for FTN Financial,” Kisber said. “We believe that our unique distribution platform fills a real client need in this market in particular.”
FTN ranked 25th last year among senior managers with winning competitive bids on $288.1 million in sales, according to Thomson Reuters. In the first six months this year, the firm ranked 17th with competitive sales of $434.2 million.
FTN Financial is a division of First Tennessee Bank NA. It has fixed-income sales and trading volumes in excess of $5 billion per day, according to the firm.
