RBC Grabs Another Firm in Ohio’s Seasongood

RBC Capital Markets announced yesterday that it has wrapped up its purchase of yet another firm — Ohio mainstay Seasongood & Mayer LLC. The move was designed to bolster RBC’s presence in yet another high-issue state and was first announced at the end of April. As in many acquisitions of regional broker-dealers in the municipal market, the two parties described their deal as a win for both sides. Minneapolis-based RBC gets a stronger foothold in Ohio, as well as middle-market and K-12 school bond underwriting, while Seasongood gets the tools and trappings of a larger parent.With some final integration of the firms’ technology systems over the weekend, the old Seasongood operation opened for business yesterday under the RBC banner. All of the firm’s bankers, salespeople, and the one underwriter accepted offers and began work yesterday as RBC employees, said Chris Hamel, RBC’s head of municipal finance.“We feel very good about the integration process over the last seven weeks, and we’ve executed on all of the goals that we had,” Hamel said.While RBC officials said in early May that it planned to keep Seasongood’s small trading desk intact, Hamel said that the two traders who were given offers opted not to accept them.Todd Braff, a former managing principal at Seasongood, is now head of RBC’s Ohio operations.“Among other benefits, the merger will allow us to better serve our clients in the state of Ohio while maintaining our long-standing leadership position,” Braff said in an RBC statement.RBC said in the statement that buying Seasongood not only made it the top underwriter in Ohio, the source of $12.8 billion of muni bonds last year. It would also make the combined firm the top K-12 school bonds underwriter and further distance themselves from the pack as the nation’s largest underwriter in small- to mid-sized bond sales, the statement said.Seasongood has been the top underwriter of municipal bonds in Ohio for six of the past seven years, according to Thomson Financial. Through the end of last week, the firm was ranked the fourth-busiest underwriter in Ohio this year, having senior managed 27 deals worth a combined $544.9 million.As a financial adviser, Seasongood has been among the top four in Ohio in each of the last seven years and the top adviser in four of those years, according to Thomson. So far this year, Seasongood is again on pace to be the state’s top financial adviser.Seasongood is just one of a handful of firms that RBC has acquired in recent years. In 2006 alone, RBC snapped up Atlanta-based Flag Financial Corp., New York-based Carlin Financial Group, Denver-based Daniels & Co., and American Guaranty & Trust of Wilmington, Del. In March, the broker-dealer’s wealth management-focused cousin RBC Dain Rauscher Inc. announced it was buying New Jersey-based JB Hanauer & Co.As part of the Seasongood acquisition, RBC will also get Seasongood Asset Management, which now manages about $1.5 billion of assets for public fund clients in Ohio, the company said. This group will operate as RBC Public Fund Services, a joint venture between the capital markets company and RBC’s Voyageur Asset Management.Though RBC is not currently in discussions with other firms about future acquisitions and has not identified specific places or sectors where it wants to ramp up, the firm will continue to scout out regional firms, Hamel said.“We will look for those opportunities just like we have for the past five years,” he said.