Irvine investment bank Hagerty, Stewart & Associates Inc. has been acquired by The Seidler Companies, a Los Angeles-based investment bank.
Terms were not disclosed.
With the deal, Seidler picks up an OC presence and about $500 million in assets under management. Hagerty Stewart, which will switch to the Seidler name, joins an institution with municipal finance, asset management and institutional trading operations, which Hagerty Stewart did not have before.
“It’s a great opportunity for both firms. It gave us access to departments of business we didn’t have,” said Nicholas Mosich, chief executive of Hagerty Stewart, who will become Seidler’s head of OC operations. “We are very excited. This opens new doors of opportunities. The combined firms are going to get where they wanted to go three times as fast,” said Roland Seidler, the chief executive of The Seidler Companies.
In addition, Seidler said, Hagerty Stewart has “substantial assets under management, which tend to be the revenue stabilizer this business really needs. The investment banking and merchant banking industry has highs and lows.”
The investment banking sector has slowed lately, as investors have become more wary of private placements and the timelines on exit strategies have lengthened due to the downturn in public offerings.
But many firms still have money to burn, since earlier investments have brought in more capital to their coffers.
“Orange County is a booming territory and outstanding opportunity in investment banking and merchant banking,” Seidler said.
Hagerty Stewart,which industry sources said had been on the block for some time,has offices in Irvine, Fresno and Redlands. The combined firm will have a few more than 100 employees.
The acquisition already has generated some interest in the company. Since the deal was completed Jan. 2, the company has hired four new employees. Mosich said there are several more people that have expressed interest in joining the firm.
“Already we have seen a tremendous number of inquires from investment bankers and retail brokers wanting to join,” Mosich said.
Seidler said that he is not looking for any corporate acquisitions in the near term, but he is interested in acquiring new talent to grow the firm.
The firm will be cultivating a $10 million private equity investment fund it recently started in order to put capital in the companies it did business with.
“We have made a number of investments in private companies, but those were made on an ad hoc basis. The new fund formalizes that activity,” Seidler said. n
