Brownstone Expands with Muni Hire

Brownstone Investment Group, a fixed income investment firm, brought aboard former Morgan Stanley fixed income trader Matthew Martines as managing director to expand its municipal bond trading and electronic market-making units.

Martines arrives from Morgan Stanley, where he spent more than 15 years in various leadership roles within fixed income trading and electronic market making, including municipal technology and sales, said Jon Sablowsky, head of trading at Brownstone. Martines will be based in New York and a new office set to open in the suburbs that will focus on institutional accounts and trading smaller trading increments, Sablowsky said.

“He is in charge of trading municipal securities throughout the country, with the primary focus right now on smaller-size lots, increments of under 250,000 [bonds],” Sablowsky said.

Market-making at Brownstone refers to providing a wide range of electronic requests for quotes, or bids-wanted.

Martines joins Paul Sitarz, who arrived last year with more than 30 years of experience in the markets to launch the firm’s municipal bond business. The hire represents Brownstone’s commitment to expand its presence into municipal bonds.

The firm opened a San Francisco office in September to serve the west coast market and seeks a trader to round out its execution capabilities in the region.

The muni group has trading operations headquartered in New York, Sablowsky said. The office develops and maintains relationships with institutional accounts. Brownstone houses its eight salespeople in New York and San Francisco.

“We’re certainly exploring opening offices throughout the country,” Sablowsky said. “As needs fit and we expand, we anticipate having two to three more branch offices throughout the country. We want to be able to service our customers’ needs more directly by having some sales positions domiciled in more areas of the country.”

Brownstone, a broker-dealer with an asset management component that can invest in municipal bonds, trades in fixed income securities with a customer base that includes hundreds of other broker-dealers, banks, institutions and registered investment advisors throughout the U.S., western Europe and Latin America.