Opinions on Piper Sandler?

Pretty standard question. What are your objective opinions on the firm? How does it compare to some of the other key players in the US - Jefferies, HL, Blair, Baird, HW? 

43 Comments
 

According to a few post recently, seems like a Jefferies is way above them these days. As for the rest. They seem to be competing well with PS. Wuld say PS and Baird are the top ones not including Jefferies

You think Piper is better than Blair, HL, and Harris Williams? Come on, this must be a joke

 

Met a high school friend while out one night who worked at Piper in a very sweaty group. Told me he wanted to quit every single day of his life. Now he's moved to a boutique and is much happier. He looks way less dead inside.

Piper is probably below every name mentioned unless you are talking healthcare or financial services? Don't do a ton of work with these guys so I can't really comment.

 

Jefferies has double the avg deal size of the rest of the pack. Isn’t the usual competitor, but does occasionally pitch against the rest. Also I’m assuming we’re only talking about HL m&a, not rx.

Of the remaining, it’s group dependent but generally speaking those banks are regarded as the top mm banks, and I think piper deserves a mention in there as well, especially for its hc, consumer, and fig groups. For comp, Piper clearly is trying to become a leader by the recent pay bumps, however one could say that the others will likely follow (HL bumped first but only to 90 for a1, and baird has been at 95 base already). For exits, personally I think blair has the best exits, then HW and HL (non rx), then Piper and Baird (again not including jefferies in this convo).

Overall Piper is a good bank with some great groups, has built a reputation for a sweaty culture (not sure on updates regarding that), and is currently the leader in mm base pay for junior bankers.

 

Piper is best known for HC, financial services, and FIG. Based on networking, don't have much knowledgeable on deal flow / exits outside out those 3 respective groups. 

 

These discussions are so pointless, unless you're holding offers from jefferies, hw, Blair and piper then it doesn't really matter how well they stack up against one another now does it? If Piper's your only offer and you want to do banking, guess what your choices are? How does Piper stack up against continuing to interview or not doing banking. That's it, that's the only ranking in front of you. Their deal flow or prestige relative to some shop that hasn't given you an offer is irrelevant. Look at your offers (places that, u know, actually sent you an offer letter) and determine the best one out of those. Anything else is pure speculation on a decision you don't have the luxury of making.

 

It was a joke when I was there (I sat next to the FSG analyst). He basically just made logos and contact lists for the industry teams and some internal work. No modeling whatsoever. Large contrast to BB FSG teams which do a ton of LBO modeling, usually a great team to be on at most BBs)

The analyst lateraled to an industry team at another MM after a year. His job looked miserable.

 

Their Financial Services groups (Sandler O'Neil legacy) are awesome and have really strong WLB. I think most of the sweatshop rumors come from the Piper Jaffray side. I worked in a group nested within (Fintech, Depositories, etc.) and had a great experience. Ultimately left because at the time, we, the Sandler guys, were getting paid boutique comp still and the Piper guys were making way more than us. 

 

Meant the Sponsors group, not Services, but judging from the other reply above it seems like there’s a sharp difference in quality between financial sponsors and financial services at the firm haha

 

Piper Sandler has one of the best Med Tech Groups in Investment Banking. Their FIG and Consumer groups are also very strong with FIG being located in NY/Chicago and most of Consumer being in San Francisco. With the recent acquisition of DBO Partners, they are starting to act like RJ did in the past decade, acquiring a bunch of strong boutiques (RJ acquired Financo). This will help Piper immensely in their tech group, as it lacked before this acquisition. Except for Jefferies (IMO is on the line of MM and Bulge/Elite, as GTCR is in PE to megafunds), I think the overall Middle Market lineup is realistically as follows:

1) Houlihan & Blair

2) Baird, Piper, HW, Lincoln

3) Stifel, RJ, Stephens, Cowen (TD now), KBCM

99) BGL...

This does not include international banks such as BMO, RBC, HSBC, Macquarie, etc

 

I would put Piper in its own tier above Baird, Lincoln, HW. If you work on the street you would know they are above those firms. They do however have ways to go before competing with Houlihan and Blair. 

 

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