DALLAS - Four bankers have left Peacock Hislop Staley & Given Inc. to open a new Phoenix office for the San Francisco-based firm of Stone & Youngberg, while Larry Given, one of the original founders of the underwriter, has agreed to rejoin the firm.
Given, who has been working for several years as the assistant finance director for Mesa, joins the firm's remaining three senior bankers as a senior banker.
The former Peacock Hislop contingent includes senior bankers Grant Hamill, Robert Casillas, and Mark Reader, and junior banker Michael LaVallee.
"We are very excited to open Stone & Youngberg's public finance office in Arizona," said Hamill, who will serve as director of the firm's Phoenix office. "We have a number of opportunities in Arizona and look forward to becoming the preeminent public finance investment bank in the state."
According to Stone & Youngberg, the new location is the next step of a "strategic plan to become the western region's dominant underwriter of state and local agency government debt." Firm officials say they believe expanding the firm's presence will make them more accessible to both current clients and prospective ones.
"Opening an office in Arizona is a natural extension of the work that we have already done in Arizona as we continue to offer our expertise to issuers and investors throughout the west," Stone & Youngberg chief executive officer Ken Williams said Monday in a news release. "We have a team of extremely talented professionals in Arizona that will allow us to be competitive from day one."
Thomas Hislop, a partner at Peacock Hislop, said his firm remains ready to handle the needs of its clients. He said he is currently meeting with candidates to fill the vacant positions.
"We are meeting with a number of excellent candidates and feel confident that the team we will put together will help us continue our tradition as the premiere investment bank of Arizona," he said.
Hislop is awaiting an Aug. 21 meeting of the board of directors of the Superstition Mountains Community Facilities District No. 1 in Apache Junction, Ariz., for a final resolution to an outstanding legal judgment against his firm that could have left it bankrupt.
"We have reached a resolution, but we are awaiting the formal acceptance of that resolution at the board's Aug. 21 meeting," he said.
A Pinal County Superior Court jury on May 3 levied a $6.16 million judgment against Peacock Hislop in a lawsuit brought against it by the Phoenix area district. Officials at the district accused the firm of negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duties, and professional negligence during its work as financial adviser for a nonrated revenue bond issue in 1994.
Officials said that if the district and Peacock Hislop had been unable to reach an agreement, the firm would likely not have had sufficient resources to pay the judgment.
