Earnings Labs

Piper Sandler Companies (PIPR)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Wed, Jan 29, 2014

$88.39

+0.39%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+2.35%

1 Week

-4.39%

1 Month

+5.41%

vs S&P

+1.11%

Transcript

Andrew S. Duff

Management

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Piper Jaffray Companies Conference Call. Before we begin -- this is Andrew Duff. Before we begin, our review of 2013 results, as you can see, we've incorporated certain non-GAAP elements in presenting our results. Our objective in enhancing our reporting is to provide you with more clarity on the performance of our business by excluding items, such as noncontrolling interest from our consolidated investment funds in certain acquisition-related costs. Deb will provide more details on this, as well as our financial results. Turning to our year. We had a very strong finish to 2013, with nearly all of our businesses up sequentially and year-over-year in the fourth quarter to deliver our best quarterly revenue since we went public in 2004. In general, we saw momentum build in our equities-related activities as the year progressed. The strong finish in our fixed income activities partially overcame challenging conditions we experienced in midyear. Our diverse mix of businesses combined to produce improved results over 2012 in all key metrics, including revenues, net income and most importantly, return on equity. For the year, we generated an ROE of 6.2%, an improvement over last year's 5.7% and a substantial improvement over 2011's ROE of 2.3% The comparison versus 2011 is important since it marked a key inflection point for us. In the midst of serious market dislocations in 2011, we embarked on a series of strategic steps with the overall objectives of producing meaningful improvements to our ROE over the near to mid-term and generating solid profits in any market environment. Also, we believe that as we executed successfully on our strategy, we would strengthen our position as an attractive platform for professionals and firms. We continued our substantial progress in achieving these objectives in 2013.…

Debbra L. Schoneman

Management

In the fourth quarter of 2013, continuing operations generated record net revenues on a GAAP basis of $187.6 million, an increase of 46% on a sequential basis. Net income for the quarter was $28 million or $1.75 per diluted common share, and our pretax operating margin was 22.4%. Our fourth quarter results include a $4 million or $0.25 per diluted common share tax benefit resulting from the reversal of our U.K. subsidiary's deferred tax asset valuation allowance. For the full year, our net revenues were $525.2 million, and net income from continuing operations was $49.8 million or $2.98 per diluted common share. Pretax operating margin of 14.4% was consistent with 2012. Beginning this quarter, we updated our presentation of segment net revenues to increase transparency and better reflect the types of revenues earned by our capital market segment. Management and performance fees generated from our municipal Securities and merchant banking funds, previously reported as other income, are now presented as a separate line entitled Management and Performance Fees. Gains and losses related to our investments in these funds are included within investment income. In addition, amounts previously presented as other income or loss have now been broken out into more descriptive separate lines. Investment income or loss reflects gains and losses from our merchant banking and firm investments. Long-term financing expenses represent the interest expense on our variable-rate senior notes. In addition to our GAAP results, we have represented non-GAAP financial measures to provide a more meaningful basis for comparison of our core operating results. The non-GAAP measures exclude revenues and expenses related to noncontrolling interests, amortization of intangible assets related to acquisitions, compensation for acquisition-related agreements and restructuring and acquisition integration costs. The remainder of my remarks will be based on these non-GAAP financial measures. In the fourth quarter…

Andrew S. Duff

Management

That concludes our formal remarks. Operator, we will now open the line for questions. Yes. Is the operator available, please, to open the line? Operator, if you're available, please, we'd like to open the line for questions. Well, we apologize. It appears that there are some difficulties with our telephone conference vendor this morning. We would welcome any questions you have. Please call Tom Smith at Investor Relations here in Minneapolis. That number is (612) 303-6336. And again, we'd welcome all questions this morning. And we apologize, there appears to be an issue with our vendor. And then, let me just make a closing comment. The progress we have made in the past 2 years was driven by our focus on execution. We reduced costs, exited unprofitable businesses, invested our capital wisely and added to our higher-margin businesses. Our improving results attracted growth opportunities as we added Seattle-Northwest and Edgeview, as well as several new groups across our businesses. We believe that we will have additional growth opportunities and the resources to pursue them as we continue to execute in our core business. We thank all of our clients for their trust in us and our employee partners for remaining focused on executing on our clients' and shareholders' behalf. Thank you, all, for joining us this morning. Goodbye.