Calvin Grigsby

Municipal Investment Bank, 1996

Job / Role

Founder of the country’s largest minority owned bond firm (Grigsby Brandford)

Grigsby Branford

Calvin Grigsby was a poor kid from Arkansas who became a lawyer and then banker in the 70s and 80s.  With smarts and determination, Grigsby built a municipal investment bank from scratch, meaning he helped cities raise money to build schools, roads and more.  As his success grew, Grigsby was profiled in the NYT, Black Enterprise, LA Times and more (“Money Merchants:  From LA to Miami, Calvin Grigsby and his team are taking the public finance market by storm”).

After more than a decade of hard work, Grigsby's company started to get real momentum and beat Goldman Sachs for a major deal. The giant bank and their allies went after Grigsby and he goes from glowing profiles in the summer of 1996 to being arrested and indicted that fall.  Grigsby spends his entire life savings clearing his name and beating the charges, but loses his investment bank in the process.

Financier Grigsby not guilty of bribery
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One-time San Francisco financial wizard Calvin Grigsby and a co-defendant have been acquitted by a federal jury in Miami of charges that they participated in a $350,000 bribery scheme to win lucrative municipal bond deals.

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