Piper Sandler Companies (NYSE:PIPR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Devin Ryan: Hey, good morning, Chad, Deb and Tim. I’ll echo those comments, Tim. Best wishes in the future here. I guess just want to start on muni underwriting. And yeah, I’ve heard comments just obviously need rates to stabilize to see that business pick up. I guess if we do stabilize, but we’re stabilizing at higher levels, do issuers still have the same needs to fund their projects, so therefore kind of the volumes really shouldn’t be affected much? Or do these issuers still kind of have some rate sensitivity to what they want to do so they’ll restrict activities just given more expensive rates. So, I’m just trying to think about ultimately kind of what a recovery looks like? Is it a recovery, but it’s — you’re kind of [indiscernible] sort of more muted level? Or just really what a more normal year could look like assuming we level out at a little bit higher rates than we’ve seen historically?

Deb Schoneman: Yeah, it is very dependent, Devin, on which part of our business that you’re looking at. But if you think holistically about higher rates, obviously, the refinancing side of the business which has largely gone awry. There’s some of that still happening as projects mature and they can refinance. But for the most part, you are looking at new money. So the question about whether or not higher rates limits that, to some degree, it will. And that’s partly because the size of things might be smaller, right? So they still have a need, but projects might come in smaller one. The other things that these issuers are dealing with is just higher construction costs. So whether it’s building a new school or other development, that is also impacting.

So that’s just something else to watch, I think, in terms of these issuers ability to actually get these new projects done. So I guess a little more muted from what it would have been on higher rates until we get maybe some of this inflationary pressure out of the marketplace.

Chad Abraham: Yeah. And I would just add, Devin, to what Deb said, I mean, there’s no question the muni financing business of all of our business segments is the most challenged, and it’s mostly on the specialty side. And it makes sense to what Deb said when you think a lot of that is project-based. Some of it is project financing. And if rates are much higher, it costs more to do the project. There’s a question of, does the return work for the developer? Do they need more financing? But also in that world, you need fund flows into high-yield muni funds. And those flows have been — there’s a lot of other places where people are getting good fixed income returns. So a lot of that money hasn’t come back. That will — the spreads will adjust, but that’s a big part of why that’s been very difficult for us this year.

Deb Schoneman: Yeah. Great point.

Devin Ryan: Okay. Terrific. And just want to come back to the advisory business for a moment and just talk a little bit about kind of how you think about the capacity of that business today relative to maybe where you were a couple of years ago heading into the record 2021? So obviously, you guys have been very aggressive on recruiting, not just this year, but even going back a couple of years, you’ve done some acquisitions, so you kind of rounded out your sector coverage. So just like how you feel like you’re competing in the market today and how that’s evolved even over the past couple of years? And then where it still feels like there’s room, and obviously, there’s always going to be some areas of white space, but where there’s maybe bigger holes where you could kind of really turn to lever and still do quite a bit more?