LOS ANGELES — Williams Capital Group has hired public finance veteran Sean Boyea as a principal to run the its new Sacramento office, the firm announced Monday.
The new office accelerates growth plans conceived when the boutique investment bank entered the municipal finance market in February 2010, said Jacqueline Knights, head of municipal finance.
“Establishing a California presence underscores the firm’s commitment to the state and our municipal business,” Knights said. “We selected Sean because he has extensive experience working with California issuers and we consider him to be a solid independent banker. We just think he is the right guy to run that office.”
Since Williams Capital began offering full service municipal services in 2010, it has participated in the sale and distribution of over $110 billion of municipal securities including $30 billion as co-manager, according to the firm. A co-manager in the California state pool, it has been a co-manager on the bonds issued by the Department of Water Resources, California general obligation bonds and California revenue anticipation notes.
“We see this as the opportunity to have someone on the ground to broaden and deepen our coverage to the state,” Knights said. “That means bringing ideas, which is so important as municipalities grapple with budget and fiscal concerns. We wanted to have a solid banker like Sean who can bring new ideas to municipalities as they grapple with these issues.”
The firm’s ability to ramp up involvement in that volume of deals is “due in part to our growth strategy,” Knights said. “When we started, we targeted clients in the northeast, Midwest and California, because we have seen significant amounts of issuance in those states. Those regions are the top issuers of municipal securities, so we were deliberate in targeting those areas.”
They were also able to parlay the firm’s reputation in the corporate market into a strong foothold in the municipal market, she said.
A leading underwriter of fixed income securities, Williams Capital has ranked among the top 20 underwriters of U.S. Investment Grade Securities in each of the last 10 years, according to Thomson Reuters.
“Williams Capital is the leading minority underwriter in taxable U.S. investment securities,” Boyea said.
Boyea said he accepted the position because he was very impressed with the people and platform at Williams Capital and that they were able to establish a reputation in the municipal markets nationally and on the west coast on a public finance platform launched less than two years ago.
Boyea has worked on deals valued at $25 billion during his 25 years in public finance as an investment banker and financial advisor. He has held senior investment banking positions with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and M.R. Beal and senior strategic and financial advisory positions with Boyea Capital Markets and Public Financial Management.
The company plans to add associates and analysts to support Boyea’s work in Sacramento.
Headquartered in New York, the company has eight offices nationally including a satellite office in San Diego. It is a member of underwriting pools for California, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio and the cities of Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
The firm also added positions in other offices.
James Carter, formerly of Jackson Securities, was hired as a vice president in the firm’s Chicago office to help increase the firm’s coverage of clients in the Midwest.
Other hires included James “Rick” Cahill, a 30-plus year veteran, to its municipal sales team; and two new associates, Peter Nahlen, formerly with Rice Financial Products Company and Donovan Hamlet, formerly with Halcyon Cabot Partners.
