5 career moves to watch amid UBS and Citigroup's munis exit

How UBS and Citigroup's munis exit is impacting career moves

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Career moves are heating up as we move through 2024, many linked to Citi's exit from the municipal bond market in December 2023, and UBS's exit from the negotiated underwriting business in October. Many firms are now quickly scooping up former Citi and UBS talent.

At Morgan Stanley, four former Citi public finance employees have joined the team. Alex Zaman is Morgan Stanley's new head of surface transportation and urban development, Lori Small has been hired as head of airports, and Shai Markowicz will be head of social infrastructure. Imani Boggan also joined the firm. These new hires have vast experience in the public finance space, which sources said shows that competition to bring on former Citi employees is tough.

Zaman spent nearly 13 years at Citigroup based in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and was co-head of the firm's National Transportation practice. He worked on various infrastructure projects covering a broad range of assets and services, including highways, toll roads, mass transit, airports, affordable housing, commercial real estate, tax increment districts, higher education and general government operations, per his LinkedIn profile. Small spent more than 13 years at Citi and rose through the ranks at the firm. Most recently he was co-head of the Citi's Airport Finance Group after starting as an associate in 2010. Markowicz spent almost 20 years at Citi as a director.

Former UBS employee Andrew Belinfanti Knight was recently hired by Siebert Williams Shank as a managing director of public finance. He previously served as executive director of public finance at UBS, where he was in charge of day-to-day banking coverage of local and state entities issuing municipal bonds in the Western region, as well as conducting credit rating analysis of cities, counties, schools and community colleges, helping the firm build its public finance business in California.

Belinfanti Knight will join three bankers already working in the firm's Los Angeles office, led by Grace Yuen, managing director and head of the West region. "We are very excited to have Andrew join our team and elevate our presence in the K-14 educational sector in California and throughout the West Coast," Yuen said. "His knowledge about the sector will be invaluable as we continue to serve our clients and grow our footprint in the region."

Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. also hired former UBS employees, including veteran Chicago banker Elizabeth Coolidge as head of public finance, as well as Chicago-based bankers Liberty Ziegahn, managing director, and Madison Maher, director.

With the hiring of Coolidge, Oppenheimer will now have a trio of women leading its public finance team: Coolidge; Beth Wolchock, who is head of municipal underwriting; and Cynthia Henry Pinto, head of municipal sales. "In my 35 years in my business, I've never run across another firm that has all women at the top on the muni side," said Coolidge, who started her new position in January and will also oversee the firm's two-year-old municipal restructuring group.

"With the loss of players like UBS and Citigroup, there's going to be a need for more innovative ways to fill the gap around lending," Coolidge said. "We will be growing the business strategically, working with clients where we provide high quality solutions to their issuers, similar to what my team and I did on the Chicago [Sales Tax Securitization Corporation] deal," she said, referring to the Bond Buyer's 2023 Deal of the Year.

Read on for coverage of these recent career moves and how UBS and Citigroup exiting is impacting hiring.

UBS' Belinfanti Knight hired as Siebert Williams Shank’s managing director in California

Siebert Williams Shank hired Andrew Belinfanti Knight as a managing director of public finance, in early March. A 16-year veteran of the municipal bond sector, he will work out of the firm's Los Angeles office.

Belinfanti Knight has worked on over $20 billion of senior managed transactions in municipal finance and is known for client relationships and quantitative analysis. He spent the past six years as executive director of public finance at UBS, where he was in charge of day-to-day banking coverage of local and state entities issuing municipal bonds in the Western region.

"Our firm is committed to expanding in regions and sectors with robust muni issuances and we view the K-14 market in California to be a great intersection of such," said Gary Hall, SWS president of infrastructure and public finance. "Given his high regard for technical excellence, I am looking forward to Andrew elevating our value proposition to new and existing school district and community college issuers in the West Region."

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Siebert hires UBS' Belinfanti Knight as managing director in California

Four former Citi bankers hired by Morgan Stanley as group heads

Morgan Stanley hired four former Citi public finance employees to be group heads in key public sector and structured finance businesses after Citi closed their municipal business.

The new hires will report to Zachary Solomon, executive director and co-head of public finance investment banking at Morgan Stanley, and David Gallin, managing director and co-head of public finance investment banking. Morgan Stanley's hiring comes as other firms snatch up talent from Citi as well as UBS, which exited the negotiated muni underwriting business in October.

In the wake of Citi's exit from the muni market, around 10 healthcare bankers were hired by Jefferies, while HilltopSecurities, Oppenheimer, and Siebert Williams Shank have all hired former UBS employees over the past few months.

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Morgan Stanley hires former Citi bankers to lead key public finance groups

Baird’s new California Public Finance group headed by John Baracy

Baird has launched a California Public Finance group and hired veteran banker John Baracy as a managing director to run it and be the California K-12 market lead.

"His years of experience and relationships in the K-12 space fits well with our national leadership in K-12 funding," said Brian Brewer, Baird's director of public finance. "Depending on time frame, we are in the top three to top five in muni underwriting for K-14 [including community colleges] by number of issues."

The attraction for Baracy, who started at Baird in February after working for six years as a managing director at Raymond James, was that Baird is an employee-owned investment bank that has been a leader in underwriter rankings for national issuance since 2009, he said.

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Baird hires John Baracy to launch California Public Finance group

Elizabeth Coolidge joined Oppenheimer as head of public finance in early 2024.

Oppenheimer

Former UBS leader now heads Oppenheimer’s public finance business

Elizabeth Coolidge was hired by Oppenheimer & Co., Inc., as head of public finance. She previously led the Midwest public finance business at UBS.

The hires come amid a larger Wall Street retrenchment following two years of declining volume, increased competition for fewer deals and tightened underwriting spreads. Coolidge said she's optimistic that some of those pressures would ease in 2024.

"If we see rates continue to come down, we will see more opportunity," Coolidge said. "It could pick back up on the taxable refunding side. And a lot of the COVID money is now gone, so you're going to start to see the need for more issuance as that money dries up."

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Oppenheimer hires Beth Coolidge to lead its public finance business

First Eagle Investment's high yield manager John Miller, formerly of Nuveen, said he would continue to hire to build out the firm's first high-yield muni shop.

First Eagle is building John Miller’s high-yield team

First Eagle Investments has hired John Suh and Andrew Belsky as credit analysts as the firm continues to build out its high-yield team under Chief Investment Officer and high-yield manager John Miller.

As credit analysts, the pair will report to Miller and be responsible for multi-sector underwriting, credit monitoring and portfolio analysis, the firm said. They follow the hires of Bryce Pickering as head of municipal trading, and Carl Katerndahl as chief operating officer.

"Project finance has had some troubled situations," Miller said. "At First Eagle, the muni team is managing some small portfolios with newly purchased municipal bonds and at this stage, we don't see a compelling need to get involved in troubled situations currently."

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John Miller's high-yield muni team at First Eagle staffs up