Truist has bolstered its municipal bond business by appointing several veterans from Citi, underscoring the lender’s deeper dive into the $4 trillion market, Bloomberg reported Friday.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender hired Cameron Parks away from Citi last month to lead infrastructure and government banking, the wire service reported. Robert Mellinger and Matt Bernstein joined Truist in February, too, to help the bank expand in the muni market as Citi prepares to wind down its business in that segment by the end of this month.
But Citi hasn’t been Truist’s only target. The bank has hired around 20 bankers, traders, and salespeople from Wells Fargo, Hilltop Securities and T. Rowe Price, Bloomberg reported.
“As we see, public finance opportunities are starting to grow,” Truist CEO Bill Rogers said on a call with analysts last month.
Truist has been bolstering its muni team since Scott Frail joined Truist from Wells in 2021 as head of public finance origination. Todd Bleakney followed from Hilltop a few months later to serve as managing director of Truist Securities.
“We are looking at this platform on a much more national scope,” Frail told Bloomberg, on the plan to grow Truist as a muni player from its Southeast footprint. “Our reach is clearly coast to coast.”
Citi muni alumni who have joined Truist include Jamie Doffermyre, leading municipal high yield; Jeffrey Swanson, director at Truist Securities; and William Hendricks and Dan Mulligan, sales executives.
Truist moved up 12 slots to rank as the 35th-largest municipal underwriter last year, according to Bloomberg data. A plunge in borrowing costs this year has led the state and local debt sales to witness a surge of over 40% from the previous year, the wire service found.
Citi’s exit from muni bonds had been expected to affect around 100 employees, and is just one area from which the bank is stepping back amid a reorganization announced in September.
The bank concluded the muni business was “no longer viable given our commitment to increase the firm’s overall returns,” Citi’s head of markets, Andy Morton, and interim head of banking, Peter Babej, told staff in the memo shared with Banking Dive in December.
