B. Riley & Co. has added four sales traders from Caris & Company, a company it purchased last December. It has also incorporated the firm’s large-cap research into its product offering.
Los Angeles-based B. Riley, a full-service investment bank, has offices in San Francisco, New York, Newport Beach, Boston and Atlanta.
The senior sales traders are: Tony Kiniry, Todd McWilliams, Jason Buttles and Colin Butler.
Kiniry, a 33-year veteran, was a managing director of institutional sales trading at Caris. Prior, he was with Fox-Pitt Kelton as head of equity trading and member of the U.S. management committee. He was also head of Nasdaq trading at Deutsche Bank and at Soundview Technology Group. He was a head trader on Morgan Stanley’s Nasdaq trading desk as well.
McWilliams, a 24-year professional, was a founding member at Caris and most recently served as managing director of institutional sales trading. Before that, he spent five years at Robertson Stephens as the head of healthcare & biotechnology trading. He also worked at Gruntal and Co., Wedbush Morgan and Kidder Peabody.
Buttles spent only 10 months at Caris, according to a filing with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, but has about a dozen years experience in sales trading in San Francisco. He spent about 6 years at JMP SEcurities and four years at ThinkEquity.
Butler, a 10-year vet, was vice president of institutional sales trading and covered East and West coast accounts while at Caris. Prior to that, he did stints at Charles Schwab and Piper Jaffray.
All three report to head of sales trading, Rick Waks.
Also, Caris founder Darren Caris joined B. Riley in the new position of director of capital markets at the time of the purchase.
A 19-year veteran, Caris has held various positions in proprietary trading, equity research and institutional sales. In 2002, he founded Caris & Company. Prior to that, he was with Granite Financial Group as a partner responsible for managing and growing capital markets. Caris began his career at Gruntal and Co. as a proprietary trader. He reports to chief executive Tom Kelleher,
By purchasing Caris, B. Riley added large-cap research to its stable of equity research offerings. It already had a strong presence in covering small- and mid-cap companies.
B. Riley’s head of trading Knut Grevle and head of sales trading Rick Waks told Traders Magazine the addition of Caris’ research, which focused on large-cap names, allowed B.Riley’s trading desk the opportunity to grow.
“We are concurrently adding great sales traders with deep relationships and therefore the ability to source significant liquidity,” Grevle said. “As other firms retreat, we saw this as an opportune time to grow.”
The new hires follow several that occurred last summer. In July, B. Riley added sales trader Kevin McCarthy and sales pro David Donovan at its newly opened Boston office. McCarthy, a 20-year veteran, comes from Detwiler & Fenton, where he was a managing director and sales trader. He has traded at Gleacher & Co., Pali Capital, Susquehanna Bank and Thomas Weisel. Two months later left the firm for Boston-based The Benchmark Group.
Donovan, a 15-year vet, came from Detwiler & Fenton, where he was in institutional sales. He has done stints at Bank of America, Susquehanna Bank and Gleacher &Co. He has since also left the firm.
Also, Jonathan Mordoh, a 26-year pro, joined the firm in its New York office. He came from Think Equity, where he worked in sales. He began his career at Salomon Brothers trading equity derivatives and later moved to institutional sales. Both Mordoh and Donovan report to Andy Moore, director of institutional equity sales.
