by Liz Daube
Staff Writer
A lot of people have heard about John Mahoney’s line of work, but they don’t really know what he does.
“Everyone knows our name, and nobody knows what we do,” said Mahoney, vice president of mergers and acquisitions for local investment bankers Allen C. Ewing & Co. The company currently resides in the Bank of America Tower, and it’s been based in Downtown Jacksonville for more than 50 years.
Mahoney said his job basically consists of tracking major economic trends and arranging deals between companies and investors. Unlike everyday bankers, who serve a range of people with accounts and loans, investment bankers serve big spenders. An average investment client makes $200,000 or more a year and has a net worth of over $1 million, Mahoney said.
“Just like a real estate agent, we’re brokers,” he said. They help clients raise large sums of money – perhaps $4 million to $10 million for a small company – by investing what they already have in the proper places. About two-thirds of their clients are local and on the small side, so Mahoney tends to focus on general, long-term prospects.
“Believe it or not, I don’t check the stock market that often,” he said. “It’s really counterproductive. It changes every five minutes ... I don’t call somebody up and say, ‘Buy Microsoft, sell Google.’ ”
To keep up on general economic trends, Mahoney said he reads a lot, from books on the current economy to the Wall Street Journal. He doesn’t spend all of his time researching, though. Mahoney often speaks with clients on the phone and sends out letters to tell them about investment opportunities he finds promising.
Sometimes he goes to conferences to make new connections. At a recent “Capital Connection” conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Mahoney asked the people he met about their “sweet spots,” or areas of investment interest.
“I can meet more people in one day than I probably can in about 10-20 other trips,” he said, holding up an inch-thick stack of business cards from venture capitalists.
Mahoney said those gatherings also give him the opportunity to see clients face-to-face.
“You’ve got number-crunching on one side and dealing with people on the other,” he said. “But with a lot of this, there are people you just talk to for two or three years and you never meet them.”
So, how does one become an investment banker? Mahoney, who grew up in Memphis, worked in banking and real estate for many years. He attended Tulane University in New Orleans where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA in finance.
Mahoney said he enjoys his job and he’s always had a talent for mathematics. He still holds some non-financial interests, however: He enjoys bicycling, exercising and reading.
“If there’d been any money in it, I might have been in history,” he said. Mahoney lives with his wife, Sherry, who is director of nutrition at the Mayo Clinic. He has two daughters, Caroline and Brooke, who are in college studying finance and marketing.
Mahoney said his constant study of the economy has given him a solid background for analyzing local and national trends. He predicts a rise in gas prices soon, explaining that the stockpiles people reserved in preparation for the hurricane season will soon diminish. For the local economy, Mahoney said growth has slowed down a bit “but it won’t be as bad as the headlines.”
“The length and amount of job growth has just been phenomenal, and I don’t think it gets the recognition it deserves,” he said.
When it comes to personal financial advice, Mahoney said it needs to be tailored to each person’s needs.
“There’s no quick and dirty line other than be diversified and be patient,” he said, “but don’t be afraid to invest.”