Raymond James & Associates is building up its high-yield and investment-grade teams. In high yield, it plans to add seven to 10 additional salesmen in the next few weeks in an effort to ramp up its secondary market activities. Once the sales force is intact, more traders and analysts will be brought on, according to a firm official. Raymond James, which focuses on the secondary market, is bringing on more sales pros to create a better product and to compete with other secondary shops, noted one person with knowledge of the plans. He noted that Raymond James sees the high-yield market remaining relatively stable.
Raymond James recently hired Greg Sullivan, former high-yield sales manager from BNY Capital Markets. Sullivan, who departed BNY in mid-April, starts at Raymond James today in a high-yield sales position reporting to Chris Harrison, head of high-yield sales. The addition of Sullivan brings the number of high-yield sales professionals to nine. Raymond James also has four analysts headed by Ed Siegel and three traders headed by Brad Wendler. The high-yield sales staff will be hired into the firm's main office in Red Bank, N.J. and could include posts at other offices in Chicago, New York and St. Petersburg, Fla.
Larry Haag, head of investment-grade sales for the New York office, said his team will also make new hires for a variety of offices. He declined to say how many salesmen he will bring on.