Firm Overview

The Rice Family of Businesses

Rice Financial focuses on building successful niche businesses centered around pockets of technical expertise. Rather than trying to do it all, this strategic approach allows our team to deliver the highest level of service in key market segments

Rice Financial provides investment banking services to state and local governments, educational institutions, corporations and financial institutions, offering premier execution and creative financial solutions in five targeted areas:

Municipal Fixed Income

Primary market municipal bond underwriting and secondary market sales of short duration securities to state and local governments.

Institutional Equity

Domestic and global institutional equity and equity derivative trade execution.

Corporate Fixed Income

Primary market underwriting of taxable corporate bonds.

Infrastructure Private Equity

Private equity financing of governmental infrastructure under municipal sponsorships.

HBCU Capital Funding

Direct lending to public and private HBCUs in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education.

Our Path to Today

Don Rice, Fortune Magazine, June 14, 2004
From the beginning, Rice Financial has been a firm with a technical focus. Founder Don Rice, an engineer by training who later received an MBA from Harvard Business School, began his career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in the 1980s, applying taxable fixed income interest rate swap concepts to the municipal markets. Don left Merrill in 1993 to form Rice Financial Products Company as a municipal derivatives boutique, and the new firm quickly became recognized among the most technically innovative companies in municipal finance, executing derivative transactions totaling nearly $30 billion in aggregate notional amount, none of which ever resulted in an unfavorable outcome for the client.
In the wake of the financial crisis, Rice Financial shifted its business model to focus on municipal bond underwriting, bringing many existing municipal swap clients into the business, then successfully launched several additional businesses, each one narrowly focused around the core principle of achieving a comparative advantage based on analytical talent rather than simply firm scale.
This approach to growth has served Rice Financial, and our clients, well. Today, Rice Financial is a participant in more than 10% of all infrastructure bond financings completed in the United States. Our institutional fixed income trading desk averages $10 billion in fixed income sales annually. Our service as a direct lender to HBCUs has extended to more than 40 schools, with many loans exceeding $100 million. Our institutional equity practice trades as much as 120 million shares a month. The firm’s Infrastructure Finance business has already made more than $1 billion available for investment in U.S. infrastructure projects. And our experience underwriting corporate bonds has grown to include bond financings for major clients like American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Diageo USVI and Convergys.

Highlights in the Press

Rice Financial Product Company

Highlights / Accomplishments

Originally formed as a derivatives boutique, Rice Financial has grown into a broadly diversified investment banking firm serving state and local governments, educational institutions, corporations and financial institutions.

Smart. Creative. Rice.

Our company and our employees are dedicated to making a difference in the many communities we serve.