Janney Adds Five to Fixed-Income Team

Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, a regional financial services firm, expanded its fixed-income team with five new hires this week, including a new director of institutional municipal sales.

The Philadelphia-based firm has been growing rapidly since 2007.

Janney has been the book-runner for 50 issues in the Northeast so far this year. The issues total $558.7 million, ranking it 15th in the region, according to Thomson Reuters. That activity already exceeds its performance in all of 2009, when the firm senior managed 45 deals in the region worth $557.5 million, ranking it 22nd.

“Our underwriting group, competitive and negotiated, is up 91% year-over-year,” said Dale Foard, head of municipal sales, trading, and underwriting. “Banking revenues are up 29% year-over-year.”

Foard attributed the growth in part to the seven new bankers Janney hired 18 months ago. Many hail from bigger banks that have left the market or merged with competitors.

“It takes time for them to develop and you’re starting to see the fruits of their labor over the past six months,” he said. “I anticipate that continuing.”

Mike Festa, the new director of institutional municipal sales, will work from the firm’s Boston office. He brings 25 years of experience to the job, most recently at Keybanc Capital Markets, where he was managing director for nearly five years.

Festa worked at Legg Mason for six years and Kemper Securities for six years before joining Keybanc. He began his career with Dean Witter Reynolds, the former retail securities firm.

Dan Lang also joined the Boston team to work on institutional municipal sales.

He brings nearly a decade of industry experience to the new job and comes to Janney after serving in a similar role for three years at Keybanc. Lang has also worked at Legg Mason.

“These are game-changing hires who bring top expertise and a diverse network of relationships to our firm,” said Steve Genyk, Janney’s head of fixed income. “Their combined experience and track records are tremendous assets for our fixed-income clients. These are exactly the kinds of hires that have driven our growth while proving that Janney is a premier destination for top talent.”

Janney’s public finance division tripled profits and doubled staff during the 18 months ending in December, according to the firm

Back on the sales side of the business, the firm’s institutional taxable sales team recently added Brian Doherty to the Boston office and Wayne Wales to the Philadelphia headquarters.

Doherty has nearly 15 years of industry experience, most recently as a vice president of fixed-income sales at Raymond James & Associates, Daiwa Securities America, and Spear, Leeds, & Kellogg, a subsidiary of the Goldman Sachs Group.

Wales was most recently a first vice president of fixed-income sales at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. He has nearly 25 years of experience trading and selling mortgage-backed securities.

“People in our footprint understand that in this environment you really need retail support,” Foard said. “We have 1,100 financial advisers, so that goes a long way.”

Foard said the firm is hoping to expand into the Midwest and there are plans to open an office in Chicago.

“The next logical step for us is to bank the Midwest and we’re looking for people now in that capacity, but we haven’t pulled the trigger yet.”

Finally, Dan Herbst joined the retail mortgage trading team in Philadelphia.

He brings more than 12 years of retail fixed-income experience, most recently as a senior mortgage-backed security trader at LPL Financial, an independent broker-dealer.

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