RUNNING HIS OWN RACE
Bernard Beal remembers the advice his high school
track coach gave him: Run your own race and don't look back. Since
1988 when he founded M.R. Beal & Co., ranked No. 3 on the
1992 BE INVESTMENT BANK UST, he's done that.
In 1991, the firm senior-managed $113 million
worth of new issues. The 42 professional staffers also underwrote
$14.1 billion worth of new municipal issues with full creditto
each manager.
The New York City-based investment bank has been
carving a niche in housing, education and municipal financing.
During the past several years, the Carleton College and Stanford
University School of Business graduate's firm has senior-managed
an increasing number of deals in these areas. These include placing
80% of a $133 million financing for the District of Columbia Housing
Finance Agency; marketing $85 million worth of City of Chicago
general obligation equipment tender notes; and $60 million for
the City of Detroit public school system.
Beal, 38, gained expertise in these areas during
nine years in Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc.'s municipal and corporate
finance division. As senior vice president, he headed its college
and educational group, co-rounded the housing group and created
option-tender bonds. The former short-distance runner also knows
how to spot potential allies and increase pressure on his competition.
Last winter, M,R. Beal scored a coup when it lured Donna Sims-Wilson
from the investment bank Pryor, McClendon, Counts & Co. Wilson,
an expert on mortgage-backed securities, now runs M.R. Beal's
Chicago office and is establishing a federal financing division.
Beefing up select areas is part of a broader,
deliberate game plan at M.R. Beal, where most of the business
is geared toward institutions. "The way we are expanding
is a fairly slow process. We have hired investment bankers to
increase our private placement business. We are hiring more trading
professionals who are experienced in the secondary and new-issues
market," Beal says,
The short-term plan is to manage equity offerings
within three years. The long-term plan is to be able to provide
a resource for small and medium-sized businesses' access to capital
markets.
Through June 1992, M.R. Beal was involved in several
private placements including one equity deal for a minority-owned
company.
Beal admits he was surprised by the intensity
of competition when he went solo and by the need to reestablish
his identity as an investment banker. He says, "I had no
idea how tough this business would be [on the entrepreneurial
side]. I assumed that clients I had known would continue to let
me do deals as I had done. But when you are in a smaller boat,
those waves do rock you."
With his business nearly doubling each year, Beal
is more than surviving. In fact, he appears to have learned the
secret of Wall Street: Doing business there is more of a marathon
than a sprint.
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