Samuel A. Ramirez & Co. has recently created a structured products group within its public finance business, hiring seven bankers, traders, and analysts who had left firms like Citi and Goldman, Sachs & Co.
The new business in the New York-based investment bank will focus on underwriting student loan and housing revenue bonds, helping issuers and investors work out auction-rate bonds, and offer financial advice to clients.
The group will operate under the municipal finance division, one of the company's eight main units.
Dan Keating, Samuel A. Ramirez's chief operating officer, said the people the firm hired had left their banks amid the turmoil on Wall Street.
"It's really a great opportunity for us," Keating said. "There's still a lot of people looking to move into other firms, trying to start up again."
The group includes four managing directors: Nick Fluehr, who used to head Citi's municipal housing and student loan group; John Hupalo, former chief financial officer of First Marblehead Corp.; Jeff Jackson, former head of Goldman's education loan finance group; and Amy Bartoletti, who used to work at Citi.
The company also hired Julie Burger, who used to work at Bank of America, as an analyst.
Keating said the student loan bond underwriting business will be new to the company. Ramirez has a housing revenue bond business and the new hires will help expand that unit.
To help issuers and investors work out auction-rate securities, which have mostly been failing since last year, the company hired Neal Richardson, former head of auction trading at Goldman Sachs, and Sean White, former head auction trader at Citi.
"We continue to seek seasoned professionals to help us strategically focus our firm and to provide the highest-quality value-added underwriting and advisory work to our clients," said Samuel A. Ramirez, chief executive officer, who founded the bank 38 years ago.
All the new hires will report to Ted Sobel, head of public finance at the company.
Ramirez ranked 24th as senior manager of muni underwritings in the first half of 2009, with five issues at a face value of $1.16 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Last year, the firm ranked 60th, with seven issues at a face value of $306.7 million for the year.
