CHICAGO - Chicago-based Mesirow Financial Inc.'s locally well-respected public finance group -- which was breached last summer when manager Carole Brown moved over to Lehman Brothers -- has suffered a full-blown rupture with the departure of three more senior bankers in the last month.
All three were senior vice presidents with the firm. Only Douglas DeAngelis, 31, who has opened an office in Chicago for Ohio-based NatCity Investments Inc., will remain a public finance banker. Anthony Grant, 36, has taken a job as a financial consultant with Equitable Life Assurance's subsidiary AXA Advisers, and Michael Thiessen, 33, started his own consulting firm, The Madison Group, to provide advice on civic construction projects and stadiums.
All three said they left on good terms and referred to Lawrence P. Morris, the head of investment banking for Mesirow, as a friend and mentor whom they hold in high regard. They attributed their decisions to leave to the opportunities presented by the new positions.
"It was a great opportunity to be part of something new and exciting," said DeAngelis, who was recruited by Morris and Brown over to Mesirow seven years ago from Hutchinson, Shockey, Erley & Co., and focused on smaller municipal clients.
By heading up an office here for NatCity, which has a presence in several Midwestern markets but did not have one in Chicago, DeAngelis is able to broaden his client base to include major local players who were longtime clients of Morris and Brown.
Several market participants said the timing of the trio's departures was partially coincidental, and cited a range of reasons for their moves. They included issues over compensation, and a concern that the firm was less committed to its municipal business and more interested in pursuing other avenues such as asset management and corporate finance.
The three declined to comment on those subjects, but did acknowledge that Brown's exit during the summer of 1999 made the decision to move on a little easier. "I really enjoyed the people I worked with ... and if the department had remained intact maybe I wouldn't have had the confidence to strike out on my own," said Thiessen, who has worked on stadium deals on a national level for Mesirow.
Thiessen said the most important factor in his decision to start his own company was the chance to combine the real estate expertise he gained while working at Stein & Co., which was acquired by Mesirow several years ago, with his investment banking experience on municipal development projects. "I'm my own boss," he said in an interview last week.
Grant's comments largely echoed his former colleagues. "For a long time, I've wanted to get into financial planning for my clients," said Grant, whose specialty at Mesirow was putting together industrial revenue bond transactions for private companies. "I'll have some of the same clients, but where before I was working on their bond deals, now I'll be helping them with their insurance and 401(K) plans too."
And after Brown took Lehman up on the opportunity to work for a Wall Street firm, Grant said: "There were fewer reasons not to do it."
Brown was hired by Morris in 1994. The two, who had earlier worked together at what was First National Bank of Chicago, built at Mesirow what many local market players said was a strong team with a wide range of skills. They hired Grant, another First National Bank colleague, and DeAngelis. Thiessen signed on after Stein was acquired by Mesirow in 1997.
Neither Morris, nor Stephen Hoopes, who was hired to replace Brown as head of public finance, returned phone calls to comment. The departures leave just a small handful of bankers left in the Chicago office. Bankers also staff several other Mesirow offices elsewhere in the country.
