Piper Sandler Companies

Please stand by. Good morning and welcome to the Piper Sandler Company's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded and will include remarks by Piper Sandler management followed by a question and answer session. I'll begin by turning the call over to Kate Winslow. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and thank you for joining the Piper Sandler Company's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Hosting the call today are Chairman and CEO Chad Abraham, our President Deb Shoneman, and CFO Kate Kloon. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release announcing Piper Sandler's first quarter 2026 financial results, which is available on our website at pipersandler.com slash earnings. Today's discussion of the results is complimentary to the press release. A replay of this call will also be available at that same website later today. Before we begin, let me remind you that remarks made on today's call may contain forward-looking statements that are not historical or current facts, including statements about beliefs and expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated are identified in the company's reports on file with the SEC, which are available on our website at PiperSandler.com and on the SEC website at SEC.gov. Today's discussion also includes statements regarding certain non-GAAP financial measures that management believes are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. The non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to, and not a substitute for, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is provided in our earnings release issued today. I will now turn the call over to Chad.

Thank you, Kate. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We posted a strong start to the year, generating first quarter adjusted net revenues of $470 million, our 10th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, a 20% operating margin, and adjusted EPS of $1. Corporate investment banking achieved a first quarter record with revenues of $324 million, up 30% year-over-year due to robust corporate financing activity as well as solid contributions across advisory services. Our healthcare franchise produced an exceptionally strong quarter, setting a new high watermark in terms of revenues. Results were driven by our med tech and biopharma teams, as well as meaningful contributions from healthcare IT and services, two areas where we have invested in strengthening our capabilities. Within U.S. MedTech M&A, We rank as the top advisor based on number of announced deals. Our financial services group also registered a strong quarter as they closed several significant bank M&A transactions. We ranked as the number one advisor in U.S. bank M&A based on deal value announced during the quarter. Our insurance and asset management subsectors also contributed to the strong performance. Advisory revenues were a first quarter record of $251 million, up 16% year-over-year due to the strong performance from healthcare and financial services and contributions from our services and industrials and energy teams. For the quarter, we ranked as the number two advisor in USM&A based on announced deals under $2 billion and ranked number three based on announced deals under $5 billion. In addition, our non-M&A advisory teams remain active and are a growing component of our performance. Our debt capital markets advisory business recorded a strong start to the year and was a meaningful contributor to this growth. Our deep product expertise, trusted relationships with market participants, and close collaboration with our industry teams continue to deliver consistent, high-quality execution for our clients. We are also seeing positive momentum within our private capital advisory group, where we are leveraging our sponsor relationships and sector expertise to grow market share. As market conditions evolve, we continue to benefit from our broad industry coverage and comprehensive product capabilities. Looking ahead, our industry and product teams are busy advising clients and pipelines remain strong. However, the timing of these transactions may be influenced by market conditions. We expect second quarter advisory revenues to be similar to the first quarter. Turning to corporate financing, the equity underwriting market was resilient during the quarter, despite the volatility, with the fee pool up 73% year over year, driven mainly by the healthcare sector. Corporate financing revenues for the quarter were $73 million, up 122% from the first quarter of last year. We completed 36 equity, debt, and preferred financings, raising $14 billion for corporate clients. Activity was led by our healthcare team, which served as book runner on all 23 equity deals they priced during the quarter. Our absolute and relative outperformance was driven by strong equity issuance for biopharma companies. In this sector, we ranked as the number two investment bank based on the number of book-run deals. Over the last decade, we've built a scaled biopharma platform with deep expertise and products across banking, research, capital markets, and sales, positioning us to capture share and drive strong results. As we look ahead, we expect second quarter corporate financing revenues to decline from a strong first quarter. Shifting to talent. We finished the quarter with 192 investment banking managing directors, the highest number in firm history. Development of our internal talent along with identifying talented partners to join our platform continues to be a priority as we strengthen our product and sector teams. During the quarter, we promoted six of our bankers to managing director, and we hired three MDs that strengthen our advisory capabilities in healthcare IT, European life sciences, and upstream energy. Let me close with a few final points. While the near-term macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, our core strategy is unchanged. We remain focused on advising clients with deep expertise and providing a comprehensive suite of capital market solutions. We are committed to expanding our platform for continued growth while delivering strong margins to our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call over to Deb to discuss our public finance and brokerage businesses.