September 24, 2020 – CHICAGO – Hovde Group (“Hovde”), a leading full service investment bank and broker dealer that provides investment banking, capital markets, equity research, and sales and trading services focused on the financial services sector, today announced that it has tapped Brett Rabatin as Managing Director and Head of Research.
Joe Fenech, Hovde’s current Head of Research, will depart the firm effective September 30, 2020, after having worked over the past few weeks to help transition the role to Rabatin, who joined the firm earlier this month. Rabatin, effective immediately, will serve as the new Head of Research and will be working with existing publishing analysts, Kevin Swanson and Will Curtiss, to transition Hovde’s coverage universe. Rabatin will be based in Hovde’s Nashville, Tennessee office. Rabatin has a long track record in equity research, having covered banks for more than 20 years with Piper Jaffray, Sterne Agee, FTN Midwest, and JC Bradford. Prior to becoming a sell-side bank analyst, Rabatin worked on transaction advisory and valuations services for financial institutions at Mercer Capital.
“We’ve known Brett for many years and have followed his research product closely. As Hovde has continued to look to build out its practice, we’ve had numerous discussions with Brett about him joining the team. With Joe Fenech’s departure, we were confident that Brett was the perfect fit to continue to expand our research capabilities and coverage universe,” commented Kirk Hovde, Managing Principal & Head of Investment Banking. “Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working diligently to ensure our coverage universe would not be disrupted as we transition names from Joe Fenech to Brett, Kevin and Will.”
Rabatin added, “In the regional and community bank space Hovde as a firm has a great brand and market recognition. I believe in the next few years firms focused on changes in how equity research is delivered to clients will succeed in gaining market share within the investment community. Joining Hovde is a great opportunity to continue building on the excellent platform that Joe Fenech has created over the past several years. I am excited to join former colleague Will Curtiss and look forward to working with Kevin Swanson and the rest of the group.”
Mike Hedrei, Head of Capital Markets, added “We are excited to bring on a talented, well known and respected research analyst like Brett Rabatin to the Hovde team. I strongly believe that Brett will jump right in and work with our broad institutional and high net worth client base. He is the perfect person to take the torch from Joe Fenech for the next chapter of the firm.” Hedrei continued, “I would also like to thank Joe Fenech for all his hard work that we started just over 6 years ago. I could not have asked for a better partner in building out the research and sales & trading platform that we have today.”
Kirk Hovde added, “On behalf of all of Hovde Group, I would like to thank Joe Fenech for everything he has done to build our research platform from scratch since joining in 2014. Joe was instrumental in helping Hovde Group become a full-service platform that enabled our firm to offer our clients a more robust product set. He will be missed, but we are confident Joe will be successful in his new endeavors. We look forward to watching what comes next for Joe and will always consider him a close friend of the firm.”
Joe Fenech added, “I’d like to thank Steve Hovde and the team at Hovde Group for affording me the entrepreneurial opportunity six years ago to help spearhead the buildout of the firm’s research and equities platform. As I look to new opportunities following a twenty year career as a sell-side research analyst, I’m confident that Brett and his team will continue to build upon the success we enjoyed at Hovde.”
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