Piper Sandler Companies (NYSE:PIPR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Deb Schoneman: Yes, Devin, I’d say, and the key part of that is when the markets settle down and become more constructive, and that’s the part that is a little difficult to predict. But I would say, one of the things you saw significantly in 2022 is the amount of refunding coming down. I mean, that was the biggest driver by far of the decline in issuance. And so, some of that ultimately is where due rates settle out and where does that ultimately – how much of that comes back into the marketplace. The other thing for us is, given the diversification of our business and the specialty groups that we have, which are more reliant on the high yield market, that’s another piece that we’re going to need to see. Our inflows coming back into those funds, which the year started out with some inflows coming back in after a year of outflows consistently month after month, but it’s one month.

And so, that’s just another piece of it for us. You think about our business is really pretty balanced over time between those specialty and governmental sides of the business. So, definitely see, to your point, it landing somewhere between those two, but just how quickly it gets there is a bit of a question.

Devin Ryan: Yep, completely understood, but no, thank you. Just last one here on just the balance between kind of focus on costs as I think Tim talked about, the flip side, there’s a lot of opportunity to still grow the firm and you guys had a great 2022 in terms of both external recruiting and also some nice tuck-in M&A. And so, just curious as you look ahead, kind of the appetite to maybe do as much as you did in 2022, in 2023, just given that dynamic of kind of balancing the opportunity versus that upfront cost that is going to create a little bit of a drag in the near term.

Chad Abraham: Yes, and I think when we look at that, we’re really breaking it into two buckets. We’re still focused on driving growth. So, where we see an opportunity on a senior hire that’s directly driving revenue and production really across banking, fixed income, public finance, we’re going to continue to do that. I would say headcount in general, we’re being quite cautious, focused on when we have attrition less – not replacing every spot, being very careful on just new junior hiring in banking and other areas. But we’ve got to try to find that balance so we’ve got the capacity when some of that picks up. But in general, you’re right, probably a little more careful on that hiring front.

Devin Ryan: Got it. All right, I’ll leave it there. Thanks so much.

Operator: And our next question comes from James Yaro with Goldman Sachs.

James Yaro: Good morning. Congrats on the great quarter. I just wanted to turn to corporate financing, and start with you Chad. Obviously, industry ECM remains quite soft. Maybe if you could just provide some color on what you hear from clients in terms of when they might consider transiting in 2023. And then specifically on the healthcare ECM side of the business, should we expect this to remain a tailwind for the corporate financing business in 2023? And sort of how close is this sector to being back to a normalized cadence of activity?