Los Angeles-based B. Riley & Co. has started a mergers and acquisitions practice in Newport Beach aimed at lining up deals for publicly traded companies.
B. Riley already does deal work for privately held companies. Its corporate finance arm in Newport Beach handles private deals and recently took the wraps off of a capital markets unit aimed at courting publicly traded companies.
The main players behind the move: Greg Presson, senior managing director of corporate finance, and Wes Cummins, the former head of B. Riley’s research business who has been named to the newly created job of director of capital markets.
Cummins is overseeing 13 investment bankers in the unit.
In addition to Cummins, B. Riley also added Janice Liu as general counsel to help support the capital markets team.
She joined B. Riley from Latham & Watkins LLP where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions and other corporate work.
The additions aren’t expect to stop there, according to Presson, who came to B. Riley three years ago when the investment boutique bought Irvine-based investment bank L.H. Friend, Weinress, Frankson & Presson LLC, where Presson had been senior managing partner.
B. Riley is looking to add people in OC, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, Presson said.
“This is sort of a natural extension out and beyond the traditional banking practice we had,” he said.
In his new role, Cummins is looking to boost B. Riley’s position in advisory services for publicly traded companies, with an emphasis on raising money and doing mergers and acquisitions.
Justin Cable, who had served as an analyst, was promoted to director of research as a result of Cummins’ promotion. Kenneth Tang was appointed director of institutional sales.
B. Riley is targeting small and midsize public companies in the technology, restaurant and retail sectors. The firm is looking to work with companies with up to $1 billion in yearly sales.
B. Riley, which was founded in 1997 by Chairman Bryant Riley, joins the many that are chasing public company business.
It sees itself going head-to-head with Los Angeles-based Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin and Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray Cos., both of which have ties in B. Riley’s targeted sectors.
Houlihan Lokey is the 800-pound gorilla.
Last year, it closed 129 transactions, a 40% increase from 2004. That’s the second most of all U.S. firms behind only Goldman Sachs & Co.’s 154 deals, according to Thomson Financial.
Some of B. Riley’s local private company work has been with Irvine-based Yard House Restaurants LLC and Anaheim-based SDC Technologies Inc.
It recently represented Corporate DNA Inc., an Irvine company that provides temporary consultants on a project basis, in its sale to Carpathia Corp. of West Chester, Pa.
Of 20 or so B. Riley deals at various stages, a handful involve OC companies and raising money for publicly traded companies, according to Cummins, who declined to name clients.
The new unit’s first public company deal came last month. B. Riley served as a placement agent for Image Entertainment Inc. of Chatsworth on a $17 million convertible debenture financing with an institutional investor.
“We’re just getting started, and we’re about three months into this,” Cummins said. “I’d expect some rapid growth over the next few years.”
