Siebert Brandford Shank Wins Standish Award For Muni Trading

Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. has been recognized for excellence in municipal trading with the first Standish Minority Business Enterprise Award.

Standish Mellon Asset Management, the fixed-income specialist arm of BNY Mellon, also presented an award to Castleoak Securities for excellence in taxable trading.

The awards were presented in Boston at Standish's second annual forum for minority brokers as part of its effort to increase minority representation in the trading of fixed-income securities.

"Our awards recognize the progress that Castleoak and Siebert have made since last year's forum and their increasing ability to provide value to Standish's trading desks," Amy Koch, Standish's global head of taxable trading, said in a press release. "With significantly smaller capital bases than our traditional trading partners, we're seeing a number of minority brokers finding ways to provide important market information and liquidity."

Since the first forum in 2014, Standish said its combined taxable and municipal trade volume with minority brokers has increased as the number of unique sectors it trades with minority-owned firms more than doubled to seven. In the last year, Standish said it executed trades with 15 minority dealers.

"We believe that focusing on becoming a larger counterparty to a few firms, rather than a less significant player with many will better achieve our goals of diversity and inclusion," Koch said. "Overall, we believe that we are achieving our goals of boosting minority broker participation while ensuring that our selection of brokers is subject to our responsibility of seeking best execution."

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