Looking to expand its fixed income offerings, Janney hired two managing directors, Kevin Roche and Jeff Miller, and their ten-person team from MPS Fixed Income. The team will focus on underwriting certificates of deposit and structured products.
According to Steve Genyk, head of Janney’s Fixed Income and Capital Markets division, demand for fixed income has been strong this year given the volatility in equities markets, and he expects these new hires to compliment that growth.
“It will allow us to broaden or deepen our CD and structured product offering to existing retail and institutional clients,” Genyk said in a phone interview with On Wall Street. “And the ability to hire an intact team in core product areas of the firm was very attractive to us.”
The team, which had been at MPS Fixed Income since 2010, is joining with Janney’s Fixed Income Capital Markets division. They will be spread out across the Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, and Irvine, California, and will report to Kevin Reed, managing director of taxable fixed income.
Genyk said that the decision was one that the firm had been thinking about for several years and is made based on the long-term goals of the firm and not short-term market conditions. “When we make decisions here we look at it over the long term,” he said. “[Certificate of deposits], given the low interest rate environment, are cyclically not as attractive as they might be in higher interest rate environments,” he said. “But we’re not looking at this quarter or the next; we’re really looking over long term.”
Given that these structured products can be “somewhat esoteric and complicated,” the offerings will only be available for more advanced investors, Genyk said. “The complicated structured products are not suitable for all clients,” he said. “We’re a very conservative firm, so we tend not to dabble in the really complicated products and we have a really robust educational program for our financial advisors before they can even sell structured products to their clients.”
So far this year, Janney has added 40 individuals to its fixed income and capital markets team, and Genyk says he expects that level of growth to continue.
