LOS ANGELES -- Academy Securities, a registered broker-dealer and certified disabled veteran business enterprise, has announced a merger agreement with broker-dealer Carolina Capital Markets.
Carolina Capital will now operate under the umbrella of Academy.
Academy officials said the merger agreement will help Academy expand its business operations in fixed income sales and trading plus bolster efforts to hire and train recent combat veterans.
"Academy's vision is to bring together military veterans and Wall Street veterans to build an institutional broker-dealer with outstanding skills and character," said Chance Mims, the firm's chairman and chief executive officer. "CCM shares our vision of working directly with the veteran community and consists of many highly trained Wall Street veterans in the fixed income business."
Tom Shugrue, head of fixed income for Carolina Capital, and Steve Chaires, head of fixed income trading, met Mims, Phil McConkey and Doug Greenwood, all with Academy, for dinner in New York City a month ago.
"We quickly realized the synergies that existed between our two firms," Chaires said in an email. "Academy with great assistance from JPM under the mentor/protégé program has developed a solid investment banking/public finance business."
The firms were of similar sizes. Academy had 40 employees to Carolina's 28.
"Carolina launches us into the fixed income space," Mims said. "They bring great distribution that we didn't have."
Academy was operating as a municipal broker-dealer focused on underwriting, he said. CCM brings a lot of secondary market experience.
Headquartered in New York, Academy has offices in San Diego and Chicago - and now with CCM - in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
CCM, formed in 1994, was focused solely on fixed-income in the secondary markets.
"Within a short amount of time, Academy has built a very solid investment banking/public finance operation," Chaires said. "By working with them, CCM now has access to and will be presenting new issue product to all of our customers."
Shugrue will be head of fixed income, responsible for taxable and tax exempt fixed income sales, trading, capital markets, and corporate finance. Chaires, as head of fixed income trading, will be responsible for all fixed income trading activities. To maximize efficiencies, Academy will also integrate CCM's highly skilled operations and compliance departments, officials said.
Shugrue, a former Marine Corps officer who served a tour of duty in South Vietnam, will concentrate on hiring and training combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
In August of 2012, JPMorgan entered into a mentor protégé agreement with Academy under the U.S. Department of the Treasury Mentor-Protégé program to expand its business operations and hire and train military veterans in areas like trading, investment banking and municipal finance.
The mentorship program has been great, Mims said.
"Their mission to hire vets is similar to ours," Mims said. "We clear through JP Morgan."
