DALLAS -- Healthcare and education finance will be key areas of growth for Huntington Capital Markets as it looks to expand its public finance footprint in Ohio, Chicago and Wisconsin, according to its head of public finance.
Ryan Kozak, who joined the Ohio-headquartered firm in April as managing director and head of public finance, said the bank's $3.4 billion acquisition of FirstMerit Bank in August positions it to further grow in Ohio and also opens up new markets in Chicago and Wisconsin.
The team will be looking at state and local governments as part of its focus but sees "a lot of value in higher education and healthcare," said Kozak.
Kozak has 13 years of experience working with state and local government, higher education, health care and non-profit clients. In his previous role as financial advisor at Public Financial Management and as director of public finance at PNC Capital Markets, Kozak said he focused on healthcare and public finance.
"Huntington has built out a specialty vertical within our specialty banking group that focuses on healthcare," said Kozak. "So we have a variety of healthcare lenders across our entire Midwest footprint. We want to be able to compliment them with public finance bond resources for their hospitals and other healthcare related clients.
"From the higher education standpoint we think that is an important part of the role that we play in the community and we think it's an area of growth for the bank right now."
Kozak reports to Scott Kleinman, an executive VP and head of capital markets.
The public finance team this month welcomed associate director Phil Angelo from Ohio's Cuyahoga County, where he served as a special assistant; and in September, senior managing director Nick Muzychak joined the firm from Piper Jaffray. Mazychak has since started Huntington's private placement desk for public finance and corporate clients.
The team also includes associate director John Bensted, who has been with the bank for five years. Kozak said that he expects an additional three hires over the coming years.
Kozak said many issuers have become comfortable with private options on issuance, such as bank financings. Huntington has resources to accommodate those requests as well as doing traditional public finance option.
"We think this is important to all of the public finance issuer types whether it be state and local governments, healthcare or higher education," said Kozak. "Private financing can be very important for development finance deals where there is a developer included, which we think is another potential area of growth for the bank."
The Ohio-based public finance team will be working with longtime public sector bankers Steve Abbey in Chicago and Dwight Clark in Ohio, new to Huntington with the FirstMerit acquisition.
Additionally, the team is supported by municipal sales leaders Tim McCabe and Bill Denehy and municipal underwriting leader Tim Mackin to build out Huntington's capital markets coverage of state and local governments along with healthcare, higher education, public power and development finance.
The organization has 15 sales and trading professionals in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo that work with Huntington's Government Banking team and Huntington Public Capital to deliver commercial banking, tax-exempt bond financing and equipment financing solutions to public sector and nonprofit customers.
