Chicago-based public finance airport banker D.J. Mehigan has joined MorganKeegan & Co. Inc.'s Richmond, Va., office to help the firm snare more business in asector it views as ripe for growth.
Mehigan, 40, left his position as a vice president at Albany, N.Y.-based First AlbanyCapital Inc. earlier this month to join Memphis-based Morgan Keegan as a senior vicepresident. Mehigan said he will work out of Chicago for now, but plans to relocate andwork from Morgan Keegan's Richmond office this fall. Mehigan joined First Albany in 2000from the airport consulting company Leigh Fisher Associates.
In making the switch, Mehigan joins a firm more focused on underwriting airport bonddeals compared to First Albany, a stand out financial adviser in that sector. FirstAlbany last year ranked second nationally as a financial adviser on $1.1 billion ofairport bonds to capture 10.9% of market share. It ranks sixth so far this year with$61.9 million and 5.2% of market share, while it did no work as a senior manager onairport deals last year or this year to date.
In contrast, Morgan Keegan ranked 38th as a financial adviser in the same category lastyear and has yet to do any financial advisory work in the airport sector this year. Itranked 12th nationally as a senior manager on $149.6 million for 12% of the market shareand 15th so far this year with $2.2 million, according to Thomson Financial.
Robert Baird, head of Morgan Keegan's fixed income investment banking group, said hehopes to crack the top 10 with the help of Mehigan - the firm's first banker whose solespecialty is airport finance.
"Our firm believes that airports will have tremendous capital needs during the nextseveral years and we felt it was important to hire someone who is viewed as an airportspecialist," Baird said.
Mehigan said the opportunity to join the firm was fortuitous, as he and his wife havebeen planning to relocate to the Richmond area.
"Morgan Keegan has a pretty solid airport business and is looking to move the practicefurther, and I look forward to being a part of building it," he said. "It's also a greatchance for me to be a co-lead along with Kevin Rotty," a Richmond-based banker who worksin several sectors, including airport finance.
Mehigan's departure leaves a hole in First Albany's Chicago staff. The office earlierthis year underwent a shakeup in which the firm fired Frank Paul, a veteran banker andmanager of the office, and replaced him with Adrienne Archia from Siebert BrandfordShank & Co. LLC, in an effort to boost its senior managed business.
In addition to Archia, public finance banker Jill Jaworski works in Chicago. Mehigansaid the timing of his move was not linked to Paul's departure and during his tenure atthe firm he reported directly to Kenneth Gibbs, the director of First Albany's publicfinance group.
Gibbs has said he plans to expand the number of bankers on staff, but he called Mehiganirreplaceable. "He was a great part of our team who came from outside the business andadded another perspective," Gibbs said in an interview this week. "But he wanted torelocate and he got a great offer with an excellent firm. We wish him well."
