HISTORY : Security Research Associates (SRA)

SRA was formed in 1980 by two former research directors of regional brokerage firms. The original office was located in San Francisco at the corner of Sansome and Pine Street, across from the Pacific Stock Exchange. The focus of the firm was to follow small cap and micro cap companies and present those deemed to offer promising opportunities as investment ideas to a small group of institutional accounts.

In 1989, Brian Swift joined SRA. Brian was also a former research director of a regional brokerage firm, as well as having a long career in the technology field and significant investment banking experience. Over the years, SRA added a sales trader who became a partner. In 1998 one of the original partners retired to spend time in their vacation property in Hawaii with his invalid wife. At this point Brian Swift took over as Chairman and CEO and led several key financing transactions and continued to build the institutional business.

In 2000, Brian bought out the remaining partners of the firm and continued to do transactions with institutional accounts and proprietary trading. In 2005, SRA brought in new employees to build up the capital markets business and create an investment banking focus for the company. The new staff bought into the firm in 2006 and have continued to build the presence of SRA in the investment banking community for emerging companies, primarily in the technology and biotechnology fields.  In 2011, SRA grew by adding several talented executives to our investment teams.

In February of 2012, Timothy Collins became President and CEO of SRA and Brian Swift became Chairman.

Our focus has been to do registered directs, pipes and private placements for emerging growth companies.
Most of our transactions have been with public companies, but more recently we have done some private company transactions. SRA is looking forward to continued success in serving the investment banking needs of our clients.