Baird, an employee-owned international broker-dealer, has launched the California Public Finance Group and hired veteran banker John Barassy as its managing director to run the group, which has It played a leading role in the market for high school students.
“Given the size of California's economy, this was a market we wanted to expand into,” said Brian Brewer, Baird's director of finance. “I just needed to find the right person.”
Mr. Brewer cited Mr. Barathy's dedication to customers and his deep expertise in working with California's K-12 customers as a major consideration in hiring him to lead the California expansion. listed as an advantage.
Baird
“His years of experience and relationships in the K-12 field are a good fit for our nation's leadership in K-12 funding,” Brewer said. “Depending on the time frame, we are in the top three to top five in underwriting K-12 educational institutions. [including community colleges] By issue number. ”
Brewer said Baird has 100 finance staff in 20 offices across 15 states.
The company is already based in California, with 70 employees in seven locations working in fixed income sales and trading, wealth management, institutional equities, and private equity.
“This is a great opportunity to run a team and create a bargaining presence for Baird in California,” Barathy said.
Brewer said Baird's strategy is to find the right people for its team, so there is no set number of employees it plans to hire in California.
“I specialize in K-12 education, so that's what I'm going to focus on as a banker,” Barathy said. “I would like to attract other bankers to expand into other areas and look at Baird's platform to see how it can benefit them and better serve their customers. I am thinking of doing so.”
What appealed to Mr. Barassy, who joined Baird on Thursday after six years as a managing director at Raymond James, is that Baird is an employee-owned investment bank and a leader in nationally published underwriter rankings since 2009. That's what happened, he said.
“The company is the most active underwriter in the market in transaction processing,” he said. “They are a leader in K-12 underwriting. They have also managed $9 billion in assets for California clients since 2017 and have donated $1.5 million to nonprofit organizations. Masu.”
Mr. Barassy, who is based in Los Angeles, has more than 25 years of experience in municipal finance and has worked on more than 650 loans totaling more than $15 billion, Mr. Baird said.
Prior to joining Baird, he spent nearly six years as a managing director at Raymond James and spent a combined 11 years as a managing director at Stifel and Stone & Youngberg before being acquired by Stifel in 2011. He also worked at his RBC. Capital Markets and Piper Jaffray.
Baracy provides comprehensive financing for California K-12 school districts, including general obligation bonds, certificates of participation, special tax bonds, tax and revenue anticipation bonds, interim bridging loans, tax-exempt and tax-refundable bonds, private placement bonds, and more. We offer customized financing solutions. The company said that during his career, he developed complex repayment/refinance structures to complement prevailing market conditions, resulting in significant borrowing cost reductions for clients.
