DALLAS — First Southwest Co. will join Southwest Securities under the new name Hilltop Securities sometime after the first of the year, officials said.
The two Dallas-based firms were fierce competitors in the broker-dealer and financial advisory business before their stock-swap combination in 2014. Hilltop Holding Co., the parent firm, expects to have regulatory approvals in place by the end of December.
“Since being acquired by Hilltop Holdings Inc., Southwest Securities and our affiliate broker-dealer, FirstSouthwest, have been working toward combining our two firms under the new Hilltop Securities name,” the company said in a prepared statement. “We hope to have the two firms fully integrated by the end of January 2016, pending regulatory approval.”
A Hilltop spokesman said several issues are not yet resolved but that First Southwest’s broker-dealer business will be known as Hilltop Securities. The First Southwest name will be retained for financial advisory services, he said.
Hill Feinberg will lead the combined broker-dealer as chairman and chief executive, responsible for management of the firm and reporting to Hilltop chief executive Jeremy B. Ford.
Feinberg has been chairman and CEO of First Southwest since 1991. Before joining First Southwest, he was a senior managing director at Bear Stearns & Co. and a vice president and manager of Salomon Brothers in the Dallas office.
The combined companies will have about 1,000 to 1,100 employees, the spokesman said.
Plains Capital Bank, Hilltop’s primary business, acquired First Southwest during the financial crisis of 2008 when investment banks sought to convert to commercial banks.
Hilltop Holdings is publicly traded under the symbol HTH on the New York Stock Exchange. The company had about $12.5 billion in assets and about 5,400 employees across the nation as of June 30.
First Southwest is the perennial leader among financial advisors in the Southwest.
Through the first half of 2015, FSW worked on $10 billion of transactions.
The merger of First Southwest and Southwest Securities was valued at $350 million as each company’s stock was traded for Hilltop Securities Holding stock. SWS stockholders received 0.2496 shares of Hilltop common stock and $1.94 of cash, equating to $6.92 per share based on Hilltop’s closing price on Dec. 31, 2014.
Fitch Ratings has a triple-B rating on Hilltop Holdings, whose subsidiaries include Prime Lending.
