Siebert sets up shop in Indiana with banking hire

Siebert Williams Shank & Co. LLC has hired veteran public finance banker Nathan Flynn to establish a branch office in Indianapolis with an eye on broadening the firm’s coverage of borrowers in the Midwest and Southeast while also adding to the firm’s project finance and structuring chops.

Flynn starts at the firm as a managing director June 5. He will report to Sean Werdlow, a senior managing director. Last October Flynn left KeyBanc Capital Markets, where he had managed the state’s public-sector group and helped expand the firm’s public finance business across the state and worked with the bank’s P3 practice.

Flynn will focus on expanding coverage of Midwest and Southeast borrowers and assist on structuring and project financing more broadly.

“This was not a geographic hire. This was us being extremely opportunistic about getting talent at the firm” who brings deep client relationships and a skill set that meets issuer needs involving idea creation, multi-year capital programs and navigating market conditions, Gary Hall, president of the SWS’ infrastructure and public finance group, said in an interview Wednesday.

“Right now our issuers are asking for more than just access to capital markets. You really need to have bankers that can differentiate” your firm “in this overly competitive market” amid a sharp drop in volume, Hall said. “Having someone with Nathan’s project finance and technical experience will be exceedingly helpful to our coverage as we expand our footprint throughout the Southeast and Big 10 region.”

Hall said he’s long respected Flynn as a competitor and sought him out.

During his tenure at KeyBanc, he was the lead engagement advisor for the University of Toledo’s P3 tax-exempt debt-funded parking concession. Before joining KeyBanc in 2020, Flynn worked at Crowe LLP, where he was a senior manager tasked with creating a pricing services practice and strengthening the firm’s capital market and municipal advisory practice.

Prior to joining Crowe in 2017, Flynn worked at Fifth Third Securities where he was a managing director and launched a Midwest large issuer practice. Before joining Fifth Third in 2014, Flynn spent 11 years at William Blair & Co. where he was head of the financial structuring group. Earlier in his career, he worked in banking at JPMorgan.

Flynn said Siebert appealed to him because of his respect for Hall and other senior leaders, Siebert’s existing project finance strategies, and commitment to public finance.  

“I have faith in leadership that they are doing things the right way and trying to grow the business,” Flynn said. “In an environment where a lot of firms are doing layoffs, reducing staff and have hiring freezes, Siebert has added people. They are strategically going out and adding high caliber [employees] in an environment where a lot of people are doing the opposite.”  

Earlier this year, Siebert hired Edward Tishelman as senior managing director and head of muni sales and trading as well as Marvin Markus and Mark Liff as managing directors to bolster its infrastructure and higher education divisions.

Flynn said Siebert was also a good fit for his skills on project finance that typically involve months-long, in-depth work. Siebert is “about doing the deep dive and working on difficult projects, projects that do require” more complicated work, he said.

With an Indianapolis presence, the firm now has 20 offices including its dual headquarters in New York and Oakland, California, where Hall is located. The firm ranked 15th so far this year among senior managers nationally on negotiated and competitive sales and was 14th last year, according to Refinitiv. The firm ranked ninth among senior managers on negotiated work through the first quarter.  

Hall, a partner who earlier this year was named president of the infrastructure and public finance department after having served as head of the investment banking for the division, said he remains on the hunt for opportunistic hires with plans to deepen the bench on kindergarten-through-12th grade financings in California, Michigan, and Texas.

Having made several hires in the higher education sphere, the housing and healthcare sectors remain on a longer-term horizon, he said.