Ryan Beck & Co. was set to name a specialist in taking mutual thrift companies public as a managing director today.
Mark B. Cohen will be based in one of the Livingston, N.J., firm's New York offices and will work with the 25-person financial institutions group. He will report to Ben Plotkin, the chief executive officer.
The firm says it hopes Mr. Cohen, who has worked with more than 400 mutual thrifts and taken 110 of them public, will help it increase its profile in the sector. He will also help thrifts uncover capital-raising and merger and acquisition opportunities.
In a telephone interview last week, Mr. Plotkin said that Mr. Cohen's expertise should let Ryan Beck arrange larger, more complex deals.
Mr. Cohen, 57, will join Ryan Beck from Adams Cohen Venture Capital LLC, which he founded in 2001 after leaving the New York investment boutique firm Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP, which competes with Ryan Beck for thrift business. For six years he had been the Sandler principal who oversaw the unit handling conversions of savings institutions from mutual holding to public companies.
In a telephone interview last week, Mr. Cohen said that he was attracted to Ryan Beck's creativity in the thrift business. In particular, he cited a novel three-way deal it arranged for New Haven Savings Bank.
In that deal, announced in July, the $2.4 billion-asset New Haven said it would convert from mutual to public ownership and use the capital it raises to acquire Connecticut Bancshares Inc. and Alliance Bancorp of New England Inc. The acquisitions are expected to close in the first quarter.
When the $677 million transaction was announced, one observer likened it to a "high-wire trapeze act."
This deal marks new territory for New Haven Savings. It has never made an acquisition in its 165-year history, and its conversion from a mutual to a stock institution, also set to close in the first quarter, would be one of the largest ever.
"Complex transactions are going to become more of the order of the day when it comes to regional and community banks," he said.
Doug Faucette, a partner at Muldoon Murphy & Faucette LLP, a Washington law firm that specializes in representing financial services companies, said Ryan Beck has carved out a leadership position in this market in recent years.
Hiring Mr. Cohen "will give Ryan Beck a lot more fire power," Mr. Faucette said. The move is also a "signal of their commitment to this market."
Ryan Beck has been the lead underwriter for three of the 22 mutual conversions that have taken place since January 2002, according to SNL Financial LC. When ranked by proceeds, it ranks second, behind Sandler O'Neill and ahead of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.
Eric Luse, a partner at Luse Gorman Pomerenk & Schick PC, another Washington law firm specializing in financial services, said that Mr. Cohen should allow Ryan Beck to "cover more territory."
Mr. Plotkin "can only be in so many places at once." Mr. Luse said.
