A Chicago Transit exit, a new high-yield muni firm and other career moves to watch

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Career moves are still heating up even as the fourth quarter approaches, and the industry gets more settled following Citi’s exit from the municipal bond market and UBS’s exit from the negotiated underwriting business at the end of 2023.

Chicago Transit Authority Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Jeremy Fine left the organization in July to join the Illinois Institute of Technology. Prior to joining CTA, Fine was deputy CFO and deputy comptroller for the city of Chicago. He has also been a board trustee and chair of the investment committee for the CTA Employees’ Retirement Fund and as a board member for the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago.

“While I’m departing CTA, it remains in my heart,” Fine told the committee at the July meeting announcing his departure. “Serving with such a great team has been the honor of a lifetime. I’ll be a phone call away, and also a quick Green Line ride just further down the system.”

Miller Canfield has hired five public finance attorneys from Ice Miller in July, and they will work out of the Chicago office. Miller Canfield public finance group leader Tom Colis said the firm’s goal has always been to strengthen and broaden its presence in the Illinois market.

“A lot of our culture here is, we like to practice together; we don’t like to be on islands,” Collis told The Bond Buyer’s Jennifer Shea. “So we’re a very collaborative group. And over time, in working on various transactions across the country, we’ve actually worked with a lot of the folks at Ice Miller, and had the opportunity to work with a number of the [people who are] joining us. So we had some familiarity already, with respect to the people and their quality.”

Also in July, First Eagle Investments hired Purva Patel as managing director and senior investment specialist on its high-yield municipal credit team.

Patel called the decision to accept a role at First Eagle “an easy choice,” stating that the firm is well-regarded by clients. Its commitments to building municipal exposure and increasing assets under management from the ground up were also attractive, she told The Bond Buyer’s Jennifer Shea.

“Our team has an opportunity to build a fresh municipal investment lineup at First Eagle,” she said. “The expertise each team member brings to the business puts us in a distinct position to create, manage and distribute municipal investment strategies that are beneficial to our clients.”

Read for more coverage on these recent career moves within the industry.