ALAMEDA, Calif. — RH Investment Corp. this week announced that it has hired Richard Buckton to round out its recently created institutional trading desk.
Buckton will trade short-term national high-grade paper for the Encino, Calif., firm, joining trader Kelly Wine, salesman Eric Holt, and president and chief executive officer A.L. “Bud” Byrnes 3d on the desk, Byrnes said.
Buckton was previously with Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. He has over 20 years experience as a municipal bond trader and salesman.
Byrnes rejoined his family’s firm less than a year ago, and since then has added the institutional traders as part of a plan to expand beyond its traditional niche as a secondary market dealer-to-dealer trader in thinly traded California credits.
“We’ve transformed it,” Byrnes said. “I guess that sounds high-falutin’ but that’s what we’ve done.”
He said the dislocations created by the financial crisis created new opportunities for his business, partly by making seasoned veterans like Buckton, Holt, and Wine available.
“There was this whole other business we could do institutionally and with high-net-worth individuals, and there have been a ton of people displaced that are really talented,” he said.
“We used to trade 50s and 100s,” Byrnes said. “Now were trading $5 and $10 million blocks.”
RH Investment was founded in 1983, and Byrnes purchased the business in 1989 with the help of his parents. After two years at Southwest Securities, he rejoined the family firm late last year.
Buckton’s hiring completes the institutional trading desk, Byrnes said, adding that the firm’s evolution isn’t over. Next year he expects to hire an underwriter to originate bond deals.
“For right now, what we’re focusing on is establishing the institutional desk,” he said.
