LOS ANGELES — The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFG has hired Jay Goldstone, former chairman of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, as a managing director in its Los Angeles office as part of a U.S. public finance expansion plan.
Goldstone, chief operations officer in former San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders’ administration, began work this week as senior banker for the bank’s West Coast operations under Kevin Dunphy, the bank’s head of public finance, U.S. corporate banking.
Goldstone, who completed a one-year term as MSRB chairman in September, also served more than six years as a commissioner on the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission while working as San Diego’s chief financial officer, and as the city’s chief operations officer for the majority of his tenure.
“After 36 years working in the public sector, I was ready to try something new,” Goldstone said in an email. “I definitely wanted to stay in the public finance area and considered several options.”
In 1976 Goldstone moved to California to be an analyst in the department of health and welfare for San Mateo County, where he worked until 1984. He then worked four years as assistant director of finance for Santa Clara, and six years as finance director in Richmond. He was Richmond’s acting city manager for one year.
Goldstone switched states and worked 10 months as finance manager for Maricopa County in Arizona, before spending 10 years as finance director in Pasadena, Calif. He became San Diego’s CFO in 2006, and was named COO a year later, serving in that capacity until the end of 2012.
Goldstone said the “job opportunity with BTMU felt right and I was attracted to the rapid growth of the bank as well as the high caliber of its people and their work.”
Goldstone will be responsible for managing state and local government and not-for-profit clients and prospects, including the origination and structuring of lines of credit, direct loans and placements, standby bond purchase agreements and letters of credit.
While Goldstone’s hire fits in with a U.S. regional expansion for the bank that began in New York, moved to Texas and then California, the position was actually created for Goldstone, Dunphy said.
“We created a senior position for someone of his skill set to really lead our West Coast operation,” Dunphy said. “We are in growth mode. When we see someone of his quality become available, you make a space for him.”
BTMU was competing with several other opportunities Goldstone had, so “we are just thrilled to have him pick us,” Dunphy said.
“He brings an issuer’s perspective and that of someone who has hands on financial statement experience,” Dunphy said. “When he is speaking to clients, he can say, I’ve done this and these are the benefits.’”
The bank aims to become one of the top 10 in the country and has identified public finance as a growth area to achieve that goal, Dunphy said.
With less than three years in public finance, the commercial bank’s highest ranking on the Bond Buyer league tables is No. 2 for standby bond purchase agreements.
Unlike an investment bank, BTMU’s focus is not on underwriting, but on providing direct lending and the league tables are not tracked as closely in that arena, Dunphy said. Revolving lines of credit, variable rate debt, direct lending on tax exempt loans and direct placements that resemble tax exempt loans are among the bank’s offerings.
“We are building out the platform with high quality people by hiring the best bankers available in the marketplace,” Dunphy said. “We have a huge, great, global bank that is well-known in the institutional investor community we just need to get the right bankers in the slots to make it happen.”
The bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, a Japanese bank holding/financial services company headquartered in Tokyo. UFJ, the parent company, owns 22% of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank that would handle broker-dealer activities for the bank.
