Rockfleet Financial Services has opened its Manhattan office. 

The company will provide investment banking, advisory, securities origination, brokerage, dealer and related services across the US. 

Rockfleet also made several new hires to be based in Manhattan.

Michael Keane has been appointed chief operating officer. Keane has 30 years of municipal securities underwriting, trading, and sales experience. He has worked at Lighthouse Financial Group; Siebert Brandford Shank; Loop Capital Markets; Prager, McCarthy & Sealy; and PaineWebber.

Peter Rallis has been named managing director and manager of municipal securities trading. Previously, Rallis worked for Sovereign Securities in its municipal securities division. Prior to that, he was employed by UBS Financial Services (formerly PaineWebber) for 36 years. 

Otto Boehm has been hired as senior vice president and the company's senior municipal underwriter. Boehm is a 20-year veteran of the municipal bond industry. He started his career with Prudential Securities in 1989 as a clerk, and later a supervisor, in its municipal bond operations department. He was later promoted to junior underwriter, then senior underwriter. He held that position following the merger with Wachovia. 

Blount Edwards is the firm’s senior vice president and institutional salesperson. Edwards has experience in financial markets, having worked a combined 20 years in institutional sales and trading, private equity, investment management and capital-raising. Before joining Rockfleet he managed investment portfolios at UBS Financial Services. 

Daniel Rudnitsky has been appointed as vice president and institutional salesperson. Rudnitsky previously was a portfolio specialist at Bear Stearns Asset Management, with a concentration on core and related strategies. 

Catherine Corrigan, president and chief executive of Rockfleet, says: "We are pleased to welcome Mike, Peter, Otto, Blount and Dan to Rockfleet. With well over a century of combined experience between them, they will provide our customers and municipal issuers with superior service and access to their extensive knowledge of the taxable and tax-exempt fixed income marketplace."