Sandler O'Neill is adding two managing directors as well as three new sales professionals to its Chicago-based fixed-income group as part of an effort to strengthen its growing new-issue distribution of MBS and other fixed-income products.
The two managing directors joining the company are David Connelly, previously a managing director at Braver Stern Securities, and Scott Buchta, former head of investment strategy as well as a managing director at Braver Stern.
Previous to Braver Stern, Connelly had worked as a senior managing director at Guggenheim Securities and Buchta had worked as a managing director and head of the investment strategy group at Guggenheim Capital Markets. Prior to those positions, both worked for two decades at Bear Stearns.
Connelly was head of Bear's Chicago fixed-income sales group and Buchta was senior managing director and head of Bear's mortgage products group as well as a senior member of its portfolio strategies team.
At Sandler O'Neill, Connelly's role will be to expand distribution in the Midwest alongside the three new salespeople, including broadening outreach to non-bank institutional investors such as money managers and insurers.
Buchta's role at Sandler will include extending the firm's balance sheet management franchise to include non-depositories such as insurers and asset managers. He also will provide market insight and relative value trade ideas across residential and commercial MBS as well as ABS sectors. In addition, he will assist in developing portfolio-level analytics aimed at helping clients identify risk and maximize returns from structured product holdings.
