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ICBA Securities reaches its milestone 25th anniversary
It was more of a marathon than a sprint. More of a technical knockout than a one-round haymaker. More of a 10,000-meter race than a short-track speed skate.
At least that's what Jim Vining and C.J. Pickering recall about ICBA's due diligence process to select the best partner for its newly chartered fixedincome broker-dealer. The year was 1988, and by the time the IBAA Bankers Securities Corp., which became today's ICBA Securities, actually commenced business, more than a year had lapsed. This Portfolio Management column and others this year will revisit the birthing process of a firm that has succeeded fabulously for the thousands of community banks that have utilized ICBA Securities over the past quarter century.
Reach into the abyss
ICBA didn't come about the notion of operating a broker-dealer for community banks entirely on its own. In fact, an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency senior examiner, Owen Carney, made the recommendation to ICBA's Executive Committee one day in 1986. With risks posed to community banks from unscrupulous or underqualified brokers, ICBA decided after much discussion and several years to send a request for proposal to 32 different firms.
There was a broad array of organizations in that dragnet, including some primary dealers, mutual fund managers and even insurance-related firms. Under the stewardship of then-Bank Services Committee Chairman Jack Ramey from Mount Greenwood Bank in Chicago, and with J.R. Nunn of Citizens Bank in Tucumcari, N.M. ("the Godfather of ICBA Securities," according to Vining) acting as taskmaster, the candidates were winnowed down first to 10, then to five.
Gary Teagno, who was then and is now the CEO of the ICBA Services Network, the parent company...