From Llama to Gerogia

The team of four that made up Llama Co.’s structured finance division is moving to Atlanta to join Jackson Securities Inc. by mid May.

Llama Co. announced on April 23 that Reuben R. McDaniel, Kerry Hairston, Jesse Jefferson and Jun Sakumoto were leaving Llama Co. to form their own company. Since then, the four have decided to join Jackson Securities instead.

McDaniel, who served as managing director of Llama Co. for the past three years, says it would have been “more of a regulatory hassle” to start his own company.

With about 15 employees, Jackson Securities is similar in size to Llama Co., McDaniel says.

“We didn’t want to join a large investment banking firm,” he adds.

Llama Holding Co. is controlled by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. heiress Alice Walton, who moved to Texas last year and is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of Llama Holding Co. and the companies under its umbrella.

The resignations affectively eliminated the structured finance division at Llama Co. Those transactions will now be done through Llama Holding Co.’s other entities.

“We don’t want to do business for outside customers, and that’s what Reuben does best,” says Lynn DeVault, CEO of Llama Holding Co. DeVault says Llama Co. may continue to use McDaniel on a contract basis.

The departure of the four employees indicates Llama Holding Co. is continuing to de-emphasize its broker-dealer company, once the core of Llama Holding Co.’s financial empire.

In the meantime, Llama Holding Co. continues to beef up its Llama Capital Mortgage Co. (with about $300 million in assets) and Capital USA, a finance company with about $200 million in assets. In comparison, Llama Co., the broker-dealer company, has about $39 million in assets, only one-tenth the size of the mortgage company. In 1996, Llama Co. got out of municipal securities and went from $135 million in assets to $39 million the next year.

State Rep. David Hausam, R-Bentonville, a 10-year Llama veteran, has been promoted to managing director of Llama Co.