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PIPR, Piper Sandler
Piper Sandler Companies is an investment bank and institutional securities firm, serving the needs of corporations, private equity groups, public entities, non-profit entities and institutional investors in the United States and internationally.
Our headquarters are located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and we have offices across the U.S. and international locations in London, Aberdeen, Munich, Paris, Zurich, Abu Dhabi Global Markets ("ADGM") and Hong Kong.
For our corporate clients and financial sponsors, we provide advisory services, which includes mergers and acquisitions ("M&A"), equity and debt financings, equity and debt private placements, debt capital markets advisory, restructuring and private capital advisory.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report By 11/8 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~37 days after · the wire records it on arrival
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Operating margin has been modest for a fee business (median 10%). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 9%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, not the multiple.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $770M | $844M | $758M | $846M | $1.3B | $2.0B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.9B | $2.1B | RevenueRevenue |
| −5.1% | −1.0% | 9.9% | 16.1% | 4.8% | 19.1% | 10.0% | 8.0% | 15.8% | 19.0% | 20.4% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| −2.9% | −7.3% | 7.5% | 13.2% | 3.2% | 13.6% | 7.7% | 6.3% | 11.8% | 14.8% | 14.6% | Net marginNet mgn |
| ($31M) | $79M | $72M | $119M | $69M | $442M | $134M | $123M | $218M | $375M | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| ($22M) | ($62M) | $57M | $112M | $41M | $279M | $111M | $85M | $181M | $281M | $307M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | — | 25% | 21% | 28% | 25% | 25% | 19% | 28% | 22% | 28% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| ($84M) | ($8M) | ($16M) | $27M | ($435M) | ($21M) | ($127M) | ($10M) | ($32M) | ($44M) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| ($112M) | ($233M) | ($477M) | $105M | ($88M) | ($223M) | ($250M) | ($250M) | ($181M) | ($219M) | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| ($2M) | $2M | ($651K) | $508K | $702K | ($363K) | ($3M) | $1M | ($1M) | $2M | — | Exchange-rate effectFX |
| — | — | $17M | $200M | $258M | $463M | ($605M) | $17M | $100M | $327M | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| -3% | -9% | 8% | 15% | 5% | 26% | 10% | 8% | 15% | 21% | 22% | Return on equityROE |
| −3% | −12% | 1% | 10% | 1% | 17% | 0% | 0% | 9% | 12% | 14% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $2.1B | $2.0B | $1.3B | $1.6B | $2.0B | $2.6B | $2.2B | $2.1B | $2.3B | $2.6B | $2.3B | Total assetsAssets |
| $70M | $34M | $50M | $250M | $508M | $971M | $366M | $383M | $483M | $809M | $304M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $1.3B | $1.3B | $615M | $822M | $1.1B | $1.3B | $928M | $842M | $840M | $1.0B | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| $57M | $48M | $53M | $75M | $97M | $165M | $200M | $214M | $188M | $212M | — | Noncontrolling interestsNCI |
| $759M | $693M | $677M | $731M | $829M | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.2B | $1.4B | $1.4B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 51.1M | 51.9M | 53.7M | 55.7M | 59.6M | 67.8M | 67.9M | 68.9M | 70.8M | 71.1M | 71.2M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $15.06 | $16.26 | $14.11 | $15.18 | $21.02 | $30.11 | $21.15 | $19.71 | $21.64 | $26.77 | $29.51 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-0.43 | $-1.19 | $1.06 | $2.00 | $0.68 | $4.11 | $1.63 | $1.24 | $2.56 | $3.95 | $4.31 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $0.00 | $0.36 | $0.88 | $0.64 | $0.47 | $1.46 | $1.58 | $1.23 | $1.04 | $1.60 | $1.60 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $14.85 | $13.36 | $12.62 | $13.12 | $13.92 | $15.66 | $15.53 | $15.76 | $17.35 | $19.27 | $19.27 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Share counts before TTM are restated ×4 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +6.6%/yr | +5.0%/yr |
| EPS | — | +42.2%/yr |
| Dividends / share | — | +27.7%/yr |
| Book value / share | +2.9%/yr | +6.7%/yr |
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Operating margin 19.0%Solid fee marginOperating income $362M ÷ revenue $1.9BIndustry peers: median 14%
What this means
The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin 14.8%SolidNet income $281M ÷ revenue $1.9B
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Return on equity 21%StrongNet income $281M ÷ equity $1.4BIndustry peers: median 16%
What this means
Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
$197M written down across 2 years (2016, 2017): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 31% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.
Beside that spending sits $221M of cumulative amortization of acquired intangibles charged against earnings since fiscal 2008 — the purchase price of past deals, expensed over time.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and amortization summed across the company's full tagged history, write-downs across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Chad R. Abraham | $9.1M | $19.6M | $279M |
| 2022 | Chad R. Abraham | $11.1M | $4.4M | $111M |
| 2023 | Chad R. Abraham | $11.2M | $15.5M | $85M |
| 2024 | Chad R. Abraham | $8.4M | $27.2M | $181M |
| 2025 | Chad R. Abraham | $11.0M | $16.3M | $281M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio49:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$124M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 6.5% of revenue, equal to 34.2% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Income taxes, Stock compensation as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | Op. marginmedian over the record | Net marginmedian over the record | ROEmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOODRobinhood Markets Inc. | $4.5B | -28.6% | -29.0% | -8% |
| VIRTVirtu Financial | $3.6B | 14.2% | 10.4% | 22% |
| SEICSEI Investments Company | $2.3B | 26.6% | 27.0% | 27% |
| PIPRPiper Sandler | $1.9B | 10.0% | 7.6% | 9% |
| OPYOppenheimer Holdings Inc. | $1.6B | 7.3% | 4.0% | 7% |
| MIAXMiami International Holdings Inc. | $1.4B | -0.2% | -2.0% | -8% |
| FUTUFutu Holdings Limited | $1.3B | 81.3% | 71.8% | 16% |
| MKTXMarketAxess | $846M | 48.5% | 35.9% | 26% |
| Group median | — | 12.1% | 9.0% | 13% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFPiper Sandler is profitable, but its owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
Revenue, delivered3%/yr’20→’25
Enter a price to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Manual order: ← PINS its page in the Manual PJT →
Industry order: ← PGY the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter PJT →