PHOENIX - Richard Kolman, a municipal finance veteran who most recently built U.S. Bank's muni underwriting group from scratch, is taking some time off from the industry.
Kolman’s last day at U.S. Bank was Feb. 22, he told The Bond Buyer on Tuesday. He had come aboard in May 2010 as head of municipal finance to set up its muni underwriting business, which a U.S. Bank spokesman said is “an important and growing” part of the bank’s business. Kolman praised his former employer and said he left a good team in place to run the muni business there.
“I had a good five years at U.S. Bank,” Kolman said. “That was kind of my game plan. A five-year plan.”
U.S. Bank, a subsidiary of Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, had only a nominal underwriting presence prior to Kolman’s coming aboard, senior managing only two deals totaling $4.2 million in 2009 according to Thomson Reuters. Last year, Reuters data showed the bank was senior underwriter on 12 issues totaling $395 million.
Industry sources said the bank has been shuffling its muni business in recent months. In January the bank announced that Richard Payne, who had been head of corporate banking and to whom Kolman had been reporting, would retire in the spring. Charlotte, N.C.-based Jim Kelligrew, who had previously worked at Wells Fargo/Wachovia as well as Bank of America and Lehman Bros., was promoted to oversee fixed income and capital markets.
Kolman worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. from 1978 to 2007, including a stint as co-head of municipal finance from 1999 to 2004. Between those jobs, he worked to launch the now defunct Municipal Infrastructure and Assurance Corp. and did some work with Australia-based investment bank Macquarie.
Kolman said he has no specific plans for his future yet, but is currently taking a hiatus after a decades-long run in high-ranking muni jobs.
“That’s a long time in this industry,” he said. “I could use some time off.”
Kolman said he doesn’t plan to completely retire.
“I’ll stay in the business in one way, shape, or form,” he said. “But that’s going to be down the road.”
In the meantime, he will stay busy with other commitments about which he is passionate, including involvement with his alma mater Villanova University where there is an endowed scholarship in his name.
U.S. Bank spokesman Pat Swanson said the bank wished Kolman well in his future pursuits. He declined to comment further because Kolman has already left the company. He wouldn’t comment on any restructuring of the bank’s muni business, though he did say in an email that “municipal securities is an important and growing business for U.S. Bank, built on the foundation of understanding our clients' needs and helping them achieve their financing and investing goals.”
