US-based Cross River Bank (CRB) Group has announced a new venture into investment banking along with the appointment of two new senior hires to co-lead the unit.
The group – which is headquartered in Kansas City and includes CRB Securities and embedded finance solutions vendor Cross River Bank – says the new division will work to advise fintechs on “their most critical decisions, including mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions and other corporate finance matters”.
The investment banking unit will operate as part of CRB Securities, which to date has focused its attention on asset-backed securities and other privately placed credit transactions.
To lead this endeavour, the group has appointed Benjamin Samuels and Henry Pinnell as co-heads of investment banking.
Samuels joins the group directly from Morgan Stanley, where as co-head of alternative capital solutions, he led the bank’s global capital markets group across equity private placements and public equity deals, among other areas.
Pinnell formerly served as a senior managing director for Silicon Valley Bank’s securities unit, and before that, he also held the position of managing director in the investment banking division of Barclays. He brings to his latest position over 15 years of experience in fintech advisory services and originating, planning and executing strategic and financing transactions both in the private and public markets.
Speaking on the latest appointments, Gilles Gade, founder and CEO of Cross River, says Samuels and Pinnell have been tasked with “enhancing even further our product offering to our fintech partners and beyond”.
Source: Fintech Futures
