CHICAGO — Kansas City, Mo.-based George K. Baum & Co. last week re-established a physical presence on the other side of the state in St. Louis with a bang — hiring former Wachovia Securities’ head of public finance Amelia A.J. Bond, whom the firm believes will elevate its local position and bolster its national reputation.
Bond, 48, joined the firm as an executive vice president. She will lead the St. Louis-area efforts.
Bond, who in 2005-2006 became only the second woman to chair the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, was named to lead the public finance banking group at the former St. Louis behemoth A.G. Edwards & Sons in 2001 and continued on in that post after Wachovia Corp.’s acquisition of the firm in 2007.
“Amelia’s experience in both the Missouri market and nationally is very unique and substantial and her contacts in state — not just in St. Louis — are very solid. She’s a very accomplished public finance professional,” said Baum vice chairman Robert Dalton, who is based in Denver.
“We’ve known Amelia for a long time and admired her capabilities. We’re thrilled to have such an accomplished professional with a great national reputation join our team,” said chief executive officer Jonathan E. Baum. “Her experience and understanding, combined with her proven managerial abilities and her past leadership within the industry as chair of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, will be a great asset.”
Baum ranked 13th last year among senior managers nationally and holds the same standing so far this year as senior manager on 229 deals worth about $3.9 billion. It ranked sixth last year among senior managers in Missouri and is fifth so far this year as a senior manager on 50 deals totaling nearly $400 million, according to Thomson Reuters
Bond’s hiring marks the latest in the firm’s engagement in what it calls a “focused” expansion across sectors and regions that largely depends on the availability of veteran bankers. Baum earlier this year hired Tom Laird to open a Minneapolis office and launch a new national health care business.
The firm early last year opened an Ohio office, seeking a greater foothold in that state’s market, and it expanded its housing practice with new banking hires.
“Irrespective of location, we are interested in those veterans that have good client relationships that are complementary” to the firm’s existing business, Baum said.
The 80-year-old firm’s municipal group employs more than 115 professionals, including 48 public finance bankers, in 15 offices across the country. The public finance group has remained profitable throughout the market turmoil of last year and earlier this year.
The firm has a $6 billion variable-rate book so it was kept busy restructuring transactions for clients affected by insurer and liquidity providers’ downgrades, but it lacked an auction-rate book and so was not hit by the collapse of that market last year.
Bond started her career working on Wall Street for Kidder Peabody. She moved to St. Louis in 1985 and briefly worked for Stifel Nicolaus & Co. before joining the former A.G. Edwards & Sons.
She became a fixture in the St. Louis public finance community working on education, local government, and state deals. In 2001, the firm tapped her to lead its public finance group. Bond served a three-year term from 2003 to 2006 on the MSRB and as its chairwoman during the 2005-2006 term.
Bond emerged from Wachovia Securities’ acquisition of A.G. Edwards in 2007 as a managing director and leader of the merged public finance group. Late last year it was announced that Wells Fargo & Co. would acquire Wachovia Corp. The firm named Phil Smith to manage the larger municipal group and then hired Peter Hill to lead public finance banking from New York last May.
George K. Baum officials kept their eye on Bond’s situation. s It became clear she would not be a part of the Wells Fargo Securities leadership team, and they approached her over the summer. Bond officially resigned in August and took the remainder of the summer off. She talked to a number of firms.
As her next move, Bond said she sought to get her feet firmly back into banking, since her role at Wachovia was largely managerial. She also wanted to work for a smaller organization, with professionals she knew, and she was leery of working for another firm whose parent was a commercial bank. She settled on Baum.
“I know many of the bankers there and had previously interviewed with Bob Dalton. It’s a great firm with significant market penetration and I like that they have a clear focus on the client and high-quality bankers,” Bond said. “That’s how they built their business. It’s a really unique culture,” not unlike that of the former A.G. Edwards.
The firm last had a physical presence in St. Louis in 1995. Dalton said additional banking hires are expected there.
As a market veteran, Bond said she is hesitant to predict the ultimate effect of the “huge shifts” and dramatic changes over the last year on the market and public finance in general.
As a former leader of the MSRB board, she said the issues being discussed concerning financial advisers and derivatives regulations remain the same, but there may be no greater opportunity than now to enact new changes.
