Phil Smith
Senior Vice President
philip.smith@ricefin.com

Philip Smith specializes in the structuring and execution of notes, bond and derivative transactions for municipal issuers throughout the United States. He has 15 years of municipal finance experience working with a variety of credits and financing structures.  Mr. Smith has worked extensively with issuers in South Florida on a number of transactions including both municipal bond and interest rate swaps financings.  He served as an underwriter on the Broward County Public Schools $84 million Build America Bond (BAB) transaction, the first of its type completed in South Florida and the first BAB financing completed with certificates of participation.  In 2007, he led the firm’s efforts in serving as co-senior manager on $165 million of general obligation refunding bonds for Broward County, Florida, and as co-manager on a $271 million financing for Broward County Public Schools.  In addition, Mr. Smith has also led the firm’s financing teams that have served as co-senior manager for more than $2.6 billion of bonds for Miami-Dade County since 2007.  Other South Florida clients have included the Miami-Dade County Industrial Development Authority and the Miami-Dade County School Board. 

Mr. Smith has also served as the senior technical and quantitative banker on all of the firm’s Mississippi transactions. He structured an interest rate swap program for Jackson State University that created a long-term, fixed rate for two series of the University’s outstanding bonds.  In July 2008, he completed a $114 million general obligation transaction for the Jackson, Mississippi, School District, issued through the Mississippi Development Bank—the largest bond financing ever completed for a school district in the State of Mississippi. That transaction was named the 2008 Southeast Region Deal of the Year by the Bond Buyer. In 2007, Mr. Smith senior managed a $40 million tax-exempt and taxable bond and swap financing for Hinds County, Mississippi. In 2006, he was the senior banker on an $11 million interest rate swap for the City of Natchez, Mississippi, and in April 2004, he managed the structuring and documentation of a $49 million Synthetic Fixed Rate Refinancing interest rate swap in conjunction with the City of Jackson’s Series 2002 Water and Sewer Revenue Bonds. Mr. Smith’s senior managed experience has also included bond and swap transactions for the Hudson County Improvement Authority (NJ), the City of Houston and the Port of Houston Authority. 

Mr. Smith graduated with highest honors from Hampton University with a degree in economics.

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