Veteran-owned Firm Bolsters Ranks With 4-Member Team Hire

(GlobeNewsWire) Newport Beach, CA, December 9—Mischler Financial Group (“MFG”), the financial industry’s oldest boutique investment bank and institutional brokerage owned and operated by service-disabled veterans announced the firm has recently hired a 4-member team of financial industry veterans who specialize in international equities trading and portfolio solutions.  The new traders will operate from Mischler’s Boston trading desk and lead the firm’s 24- hour, agency-only execution in Asian, European, Latin American and Canadian equities for institutional clients.

The new hires include Managing Director Lawrence Peruzzi, a 20-year global trading market veteran whose International Equities experience includes ten years of buy-side trading desk leadership on behalf of Standish Mellon and The Boston Company Asset Management. During the past eight years, Mr. Peruzzi was Managing Director of International Trading for sell-side broker-dealer Cabrera Capital Markets LLC. Mr. Peruzzi is joined by the following newly-appointed Vice President(s); Timothy Casey, a 25-year industry veteran whose pedigree includes senior roles for both “buy-side” firms and most recently served as the senior U.S equities sales-trader for Cabrera Capital Markets LLC; European Equities specialist Patrick Morrissey, a 20-year veteran having buy-side and sell-side experience at Cabrera Capital Markets LLC, Jones Trading and The Boston Company Asset Management; and Asian Equities specialist Jeanne Austin, one of Wall Street’s most respected women traders who has led trading desks for Susquehanna International Group, KCG Holdings and Citigroup during her 30 year career.

Mischler Financial Group CEO

Noted Mischler CEO Dean Chamberlain, “As we look back on our 20^th anniversary of operations and look forward to continuing our mission, our new Boston-based unit will enable us to cast an even wider footprint across the secondary market equities trading space and further complement a long-established platform that embraces a holistic approach to true best execution of equity block orders and 10b-18 programs.” Added Chamberlain, “When compared to the Industry’s top execution desks, we’ve earned a reputation for punching above our weight class and exceeding expectations. Our new team members will augment our well-proven best execution capabilities; each individual has a deep understanding of best ways to navigate global equities markets while meeting the needs of the most demanding buy-side traders and investment managers.”

About Mischler Financial Group

Established in 1994, MFG is certified minority broker-dealer regulated by FINRA and federally-certified Service-Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (SDVBE) headquartered in Newport Beach CA with regional offices in Stamford CT, Boston MA, Chicago, IL and Detroit MI. Mischler Financial Group serves leading institutional investment managers, corporate treasurers, public plan sponsors and select hedge funds by providing capital markets services, agency-only execution and portfolio solutions within the global equities, fixed income and alternative investment markets. MFG also provides new issue underwriting, domestic syndication and proprietary capital market insight. The firm’s website is located at http://www.mischlerfinancial.com

For Additional Information:
Dean Chamberlain, Chief Executive Officer
Tel. 203.276.6646

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Mischler Financial’s pledge to Bob Woodruff Foundation coincides with the firm’s ongoing sponsorship of Veterans on Wall Street (VOWS), the financial industry’s leading advocacy dedicated to mentoring and career development of military veterans who transition to the financial services industry.

In a statement by Mischler Financial Chief Executive Dean Chamberlain, a former US Army Captain and a U.S. Military Academy at West Point graduate,  “Our continued commitment to Bob Woodruff Foundation, as well as our role at VOWS, is based on our legacy of re-directing firm profits to support what we believe are the most crucial, service-disabled veteran programs. Our giving back strategy targets four discrete objectives; direct financial support that can be truly impactful, career building and mentorship, advancing veteran-centric legislative initiatives, and working with major corporations to help guide their respective internal veteran mentoring and community outreach programs.”

Added Chamberlain, “The fact that our institutional trading desk clients make it a point to support our philanthropic mission serves as inspiration for all of our team members and underscores a shared alignment with causes that are critical to our nation’s veteran community; for that we are greatly appreciative.”

Entire release at http://mischlerfinancial.com/category/news-and-information-mischler-financial-service-disabled-veteran-owned-minority-broker-dealer/giving-back-service-disabled-veterans/

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(r) Mischler Fixed Income Trader Glen Capelo (c) Duke University Coach K” Krzyzewski (r) Mischler CEO Dean Chamberlain

Oct 5 2015–Stamford, CT and Newport Beach CA–Mischler Financial Group, Inc., the financial industry’s oldest and largest institutional brokerage and investment bank owned and operated by Service-Disabled Veterans is pleased to have served as a Silver Sponsor for the 2015 Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund Gala. Silver Sponsors contributed a minimum of $25,000; proceeds to Lead The Way are dedicated to support service-disabled US Army Rangers and the families of Rangers who have died, have been injured or currently serving in harm’s way around the world.

This year’s annual gala took place September 30 at New York’s Chelsea Piers and NBC News Anchor Tom Brokaw served as Master of Ceremonies. The 2015 Lead The Way event paid tribute to 5-time NCAA champion and college basketball legend Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, a US Military Academy at West Point Graduate (USMA ’69) and a former classmate of Mischler’s Founder and Chairman Walt Mischler. Coach K served two tours of duty prior to his career as a world famous university basketball coach.

Mischler Financial’s VP of Capital Markets Robert MacLean (USMA ’02), who served seven years as a US Army Ranger and is a two-time recipient of the Bronze Star, served as a member of this year’s Lead The Way Fund Host Committee. MacLean shared that honor with a short list of military veterans who have since forged a path on Wall Street at firms that include among others, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, UBS, Credit Suisse, Barclays, and Fortress Investment Group.

After Coach K retired as a Captain in the US Army, he then served five years as Head Coach for the USMA before accepting the role of Head Basketball Coach for Duke University’s Blue Devils in 1980. During the past 35 years, Coach K has not only led his team to five NCAA champions, he has dedicated the past nearly four decades to contributing his thought leadership to an assortment of national and local philanthropic initiatives.

Stated Mischler Financial Group CEO Dean Chamberlain, also an alumnus of the USMA (’85) who served two tours of duty prior to injuries sustained in the line of duty, “In addition to personal contributions on the part of our firm’s leaders, Mischler provides year-round support to a select group of military veteran and SDV-focused philanthropies and we are particularly honored and proud to continue our ongoing support of Lead The Way, one of the most impactful organizations dedicated to providing assistance to military veterans and their families.”

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“Corporate Bond Market- Balancing on a Knife Edge” is courtesy of extract from the 10.02.15 weekend edition of “Quigley’s Corner”, a daily synopsis of the investment grade corporate bond market and rates trading space authored by Ron Quigley, Managing Director of investment bank and institutional brokerage Mischler Financial Group, the financial industry’s oldest and largest minority brokerdealer owned and operated by service-disabled military veterans. Mischler Financial was selected in 2014 and again in 2015 for the Wall Street Letter Award “Best Research-Brokerdealer”

Blackouts couldn’t be more optimally timed as we experience massive re-pricing in our IG primary credit market.  The corporate black-outs are serving as an unplanned, well-timed inherently built-in “kick-the-can” that is necessary in helping us to all buy time as we navigate thru what is perhaps the most unpredictable, treacherous, volatile and uncertain time that our primary markets have experienced since 2008.  As one very senior syndicate source told me “the credit markets are sitting on a knife’s edge.” IG spreads are on the whole 44 bps wider at the end of the third quarter according to Morgan Stanley.

Today’s notoriously and unexpected poor employment data was the last thing credit markets needed and it has instigated a massive Treasury rally. Perhaps this is a bit of good news because when both are combined, is a potential high velocity tailwind to credit products from big government bond funds.  However, that’s “if” funds want to own credit product and hold it for an extended period of time and potentially wear a negative mark-to-market.

Having said that, the guy-in-the-corner suggests that at some point this weekend, you should put on your favorite song and sing along to it after many shots of tequila.  When you get to the point of feeling bad, look at yourself in a mirror and realize that you can begin to feel better with coffee, food, sleep and time but come Monday morning the business model you are used to is about to change.  Not adapt; not get better; rather change. The trends in the credit markets that we have seen over the last two quarters are showing no signs of abating, and in some degrees, worsening.

Now please let me introduce the moment you’ve been waiting for..

Syndicate Forecasts and Sound Bites from “The Best and the Brightest!”   

I am happy to report that once again the “QC” received unanimous participation from all 23 syndicate desks surveyed in today’s Best & Brightest polling.  That includes all of the top 22 ranked syndicate desks according to Bloomberg’s U.S. IG U.S. Investment Grade Corporate Bond underwriting league table that can be found on your terminals at “LEAG” + [GO] after which you select #201 (US Investment Grade Corporates).  Their cumulative underwriting percentage is 94.00% of YTD IG dollar debt underwriting which simply means they’re the ones with visibility.  But it’s not only about their volume forecasts, rather it’s also about their comments!  This core syndicate group does it best; they know best; so they’re the ones you WANT and NEED to hear from. 

*Please note that these are Investment Grade Corporates only. They do not include SSA issuance unless otherwise noted.

The question posed to the “Best and the Brightest” early this morning was:

“Good morning! So, this week the massive repricing in primary markets saw average NICs bust out to 54.23 bps; bid-to-covers shrank to an average 2.02x; today’s numbers were BAD; Obamanomics is quite the engine of growth and job creation, China’s slowdown is showing up in our data (ISM Milwaukee posted its worst manufacturing number since the dot com bubble). Spreads are wider on today’s data to start. Lower-for-longer might just be lower forever!  The two-part question for today is what are your volume forecasts for IG Corporate supply for BOTH next week AND October?  It’s going to be challenging to nail that down but it’s an important survey at this critical juncture.  Many thanks, Ron” 

……and here are their formidable responses:

To continue reading, please visit Mischler Financial Group’s market commentary section via this link

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According to a recent column by John D’Antona Jr. in sell-side industry TradersMagazine, “After years of using a separate and siloed approach to its trading high- and low-touch trading desks, it appears that the brokers are starting to meld the two desks into a single or one-touch trading desk….

The reason? Costs to maintain the two separate groups have risen amid stagnant commission spend, to be sure. But also, U.S. institutional equity investors accept coverage from a single sell-side sales trader for both e-trades and traditional block trades.

Also, since the start of the e-trading era, the buyside has insisted that the two execution channels remain separate and that specialists who monitor their algorithmic trading be distinct from the experts who manage their block orders. The primary reason for this divide: Investors were concerned about information “leakage” and saw this hard separation as key to preserving their anonymity.

Ryan Moran, Mischler Financial Group

Noted Ryan Moran, Director of US Equities Execution for agency-only, institutional boutique Mischler Financial Group, the financial industry’s oldest and largest minority brokerdealer owned and operated by service-disabled military veterans, “Institutional clients have become increasingly fluent as to the benefits of algo-centric tools, which explains why these tools have become pervasive across the trading ecosystem, but as much as all of us appreciate the efficacy of these so-called “low-touch-only” tools, in many cases those who migrated to algo-only have deprived themselves of the long-proven benefits of high-touch execution. We’ve always offered a combination, as a 3-dimensional view that only humans can provide addresses the fiduciary best execution obligations of buyside managers, many of whom oversee public pension funds.”

Added Moran, “Having a single point of contact who provides a consultative approach and is fluent in both practice areas is arguably the best practice within the context of true best execution for those engaged in block trading.”

Among the more than 300 institutions Greenwich Associates interviewed in 2015 as part of its annual study, the quality of execution consultancy saw the greatest increase in importance as a criterion for e-trading among buy-side traders.

However, a new Greenwich Associates report, “Blurred Lines: Sales Traders Drift Toward Execution Consultancy,” shows that a majority of the more than 300 U.S. institutional equity investors participating in the study are now willing to accept single coverage across high-touch and electronic trades. Only a declining 31% of the institutional investors participating in annual Greenwich Associates U.S. Equity Investors Study still prefer separate coverage.

Greenwich pointed to two main changes are driving this shift:

To continue reading this story from TradersMagazine, please click here

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Mischler Financial Group, the financial industry’s oldest minority firm owned and operated by Service-Disabled Veterans [and the securities industry’s only federally-certified SDVBE] along with Williams Capital, the industry’s leading African-American owned brokerdealer have taken great pride in playing a supporting role in the below Citigroup-produced video profiling the firm’s unqualified dedication to diversity and inclusion that Citi, one of the world’s largest banks and a Top 25 Fortune corporations maintains across their entire ecosystem.

A founder of Veterans On Wall Street (VOWS) along with Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, as well as being “a lead book-runner” in multiple year-round initiatives to advance the support of many great causes, Citi is a true thought leader on the topic of D&I within the context of not only the financial services sector, but also within the framework of global corporation best practices.

The video below, which formally aired April 10 (also available on the Citi blog) is uniquely impactful thanks to the influential roles played by Citi leaders Kate Oddo, Director of Debt Capital Markets, Patrice Altongy Managing Director Fixed Income Capital Markets, Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Karen Papazian, Director, Dealer Lending Operations, Toyota Financial Services. The presentation speaks volumes as to Citi’s D&I-driven relationship with Toyota Motors Inc. (NYSE:TM) wholly-owned subsidiary, Toyota Motor Credit Corporation (TMCC), one of the global capital markets’ most focused Issuers of securities, and indisputably, one of the corporate world’s most respected D&I practitioners.

The clip below, entitled “Wall Street Leaders Can Dare to be Different” profiles just one of many approaches on the part of Citi to further the importance of D&I initiatives, and represents a welcome and increasingly growing trend taking place across Wall Street.

Sharing the same philosophy that Citi is dedicated to, the leadership and team at Mischler Financial Group is unabashedly dedicated to the thesis that Diversity & Inclusion programs strike at the heart of corporate best practices. We believe that those who embrace the tenants of D&I are likely to be better for it in the eyes of their stakeholders , which necessarily include respective employees, the consumers and communities they serve, and the investors/shareholders who look to corporate leaders to always deliver better performance.

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Mischler is the securities industry’s only federally-certified BD and maintains a significant footprint across both primary debt and equities capital markets where the firm serves as a underwriter, manager, co-manager and/or selling group member for corporate issuers bringing new debt or equities to the investment marketplace. The firm is also one of few in the industry that operates a 24/6 “high touch + high tech” trading desk that facilitates agency-only, direct market access and best execution for institutional clients transacting in US domestic markets and 100+ international equities markets. The firm’s website is located at www.mischlerfinancial.com

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Global Bank Trading Veteran Appointed to Senior Role for 24/6 Agency-Only Platform

Immediate News Release

Stamford, CT July 14, 2014—Mischler Financial Group (“MFG”), the securities industry’s oldest minority investment bank/institutional brokerage owned and operated by service-disabled veterans announced that Eric Michalisin, a close on 20-year sell-side industry veteran and a recognized specialist in international equities execution has joined the firm’s agency-only trading desk. Mr. Michalisin has been appointed, Director, International Equities Sales/Trading. Michalisin will be based in the firm’s Stamford, CT office where he will work directly with Managing Director Rob Livio, who oversees the firm’s 24/6 international equities sales/trading platform.

During the 3 years immediately prior to joining Mischler, Mr. Michalisin was Director, International Equities for RBS Securities. During the 7 years prior, he was a senior member of the international equities desk for JP Morgan Chase. Mr. Michalisin began his sell-side career in 1996 as a Far East equities sales/trading specialist for Robert Fleming, Inc and remained with predecessor firm Jardine Fleming Securities throughout 2001.

Noted Joe Digiammo, Mischler’s global head of equities, “Eric’s major firm background, coupled with his unique insight to local market trading, as well as best execution for US-listed ADRs provides our institutional clients with yet another highly-experienced touch-point for those seeking to navigate global equities markets on a 24/6 basis.”

About Mischler Financial Group

Established in 1994, Mischler Financial Group, Inc. (“Mischler”) is the oldest and largest FINRA member firm certified as a Service Disabled Veterans Business Enterprise (SDVBE). Headquartered in Newport Beach, California with regional offices in Stamford, CT, Boston, MA, Chicago, IL and Detroit, MI,the firm serves leading institutional fund managers, corporate treasurers, public plan sponsors, endowments and foundations by providing agency-only execution within the global equities and fixed income markets; new issue underwriting and syndication within the US Equity and Debt capital markets; and asset management for liquid and alternative investment strategies. The firm’s website is located at www.mischlerfinancial.com

For the full news release, please visit the Mischler Financial Group website via this link.

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