Academy Securities hires Bill Bingham for muni sales

Military-centric investment bank and broker-dealer Academy Securities hired Bill Bingham, a 35-year municipal banking veteran, as a senior municipal salesman.

He started Monday and will head tax-exempt sales in New York.

“I look forward to working with an experienced group that has an important mission to provide jobs to veterans after military service,” said Bingham, whose father worked in the Navy. “It’s been very positive so far.”

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Bingham most recently was managing director and head of trading, sales and underwriting for US Bancorp for six years. Before that he worked on the buy side for Société Générale for five years, managing its municipal trading portfolio, and managed Wachovia’s money-market department for 11 years.

“It’s a pretty interesting field with a lot of different niches to it,” Bingham said of public finance. “I’ve worked on some very interesting deals involving all kinds of different products.”

Former U.S. Navy officer Chance Mims founded Academy in 2009. Its history coincides with financial industry contraction after the 2008 crisis and the winding down of the post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It prides itself as the nation’s only post-9/11 disabled veteran owned investment bank.

It works in equity and debt capital markets; public finance; institutional agency trading, equity and fixed income; and investment banking.

The majority of its leadership served in the military.

“Bill has a strong background in senior leadership. I like his depth of knowledge and he knows a lot of people in public finance. He’s an excellent fit for us,” said Rick Kolman, who joined Academy two months ago as a managing director and head of its municipal securities group.

Mims is chief executive and the firm’s controlling shareholder. The firm’s president is former football wide receiver Phil McConkey, who helped the New York Giants win the Super Bowl in January 1987.

Its social mission includes providing employment opportunities for veterans -- unemployment among returning veterans is nearly triple the national average, according to the firm.

Academy also encourages veterans to apply for every open position at Academy and offers to help veterans find a job elsewhere if necessary.

In addition, the firm is developing, in conjunction with JPMorgan, a training platform to help veterans transition into financial services.

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