Two African American-owned investment banks Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C. and The Williams Capital Group, L.P. set to merge

 Merger creates the dominant minority-and women-owned investment bank

Business Wire | Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C. and The Williams Capital Group, L.P. announce that they will merge to leverage each firm’s experience and strong industry position in corporate and municipal underwriting, and debt and equity sales & trading. Siebert, founded in 1996, is a top-ranked lead manager of municipal bond transactions, the industry’s perennial leader among minority and women owned firms and #2 among all firms as co-manager of municipal bond offerings. Williams Capital, now in its 25th year, has consistently held the #1 ranking as a co-manager of U.S. corporate debt and is a leading non-bank commercial paper dealer.

The new company, to be rebranded Siebert Williams Shank & Co., LLC, unites the complementary strengths of each firm to create a robust platform from which to serve a broad spectrum of clients across industries and asset classes. Suzanne Shank will serve as President and Chief Executive Officer and Christopher Williams will serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Henry Cisneros remains a Principal of the combined firm and will hold the title of Vice Chairman. The new organization will benefit from the experienced executive leadership of each predecessor firm, while leveraging the principals’ shared passion for entrepreneurship, direct day-to-day client engagement, and track records of doing what is best for clients, employees, and communities.

“By bringing together 2 first-class firms, we will accelerate our collective success and greatly enhance our ability to serve our clients using a strong capital base that is now significantly larger,” says Shank. “We are creating the #1 ranked minority and women owned business enterprise (MWBE) investment banking firm in the country that will continue to compete with the best firms on Wall Street. Williams was the only firm with the capabilities, talent, and integrity in the corporate underwriting space that we felt expanded our franchise and matched our work-ethic and high-standards of performance, and now, we have created a truly historic firm.”

The merged company will be dually headquartered in New York, NY and Oakland, CA, with more than 15 offices across the United States. Its deep bench of tenured financial professionals has extensive relationships with corporate America, the top municipal frequent issuers, and more than 750 institutional investors.

Christopher J. Williams, Founder and CEO of the The Williams Capital Group, L.P, becomes the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the merged entity Siebert Williams Shank & Co., LLC. PHOTO/The Williams Capital Group

“I am enthusiastic about playing a key role in leading and driving the growth of this dynamic organization that combines 2 extraordinary teams of talented and diverse individuals, each with the singular goal of providing the highest quality execution for our clients,” says Williams. “Siebert and Williams are combining complementary business platforms, each from a position of strength, to execute a shared vision of growth with laser focus on risk management, operations, and regulatory compliance.”

Williams Capital brings a track record of participating in debt and equity financings for a broad spectrum of corporate clients including over 65 of the Fortune 100 companies. Within the past five years, Williams has participated in over 900 corporate offerings of debt and equity, acting in both the co-manager and bookrunner capacities. Siebert brings the experience it has gained having managed transactions for over 90% of the 50 largest municipal issuers and serving as a bookrunning senior manager for 9 of the 10 largest municipal issuers.

Siebert has participated in nearly 2,000 municipal financings within the past 5 years, serving as lead manager on over 200 financings totaling nearly US$30 billion. The new firm name also pays homage to the legacy of Muriel Siebert, a co-founder of Siebert and the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

“This is a victory for the American way of enterprise,” says Cisneros. “The pairing of 2 firms that have achieved the top tier of their fields to create one firm that is not only the nation’s leading financial services WBE but also now occupies the rarefied air of one of the industry’s most successful multi-asset, non-bank financial players. I could not be more-proud of my partners.”

Suzanne Shank, Founder and CEO of Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C., becomes the CEO of the merged entity Siebert Williams Shank & Co., LLC. PHOTO/Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C.

The merger is expected to close early November 2019 with the renaming of the broker-dealer’s holding company to Shank Williams Cisneros, LLC, whose equity holders will also include Janice Savin Williams, Sean P. Duffy, William C. Thompson, Gary Hall, Jonathan W. Levin, DiAnne Calabrisotto, David Coard, and David Finkelstein. The complete rebranding of the broker-dealer to Siebert Williams Shank & Co., LLC will take place on January 1, 2020. The integration of operational and trading infrastructure is expected to be seamless.

About Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C.: Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C. was originally founded in 1996 as Siebert Brandford Shank & Co., L.L.C., by Suzanne Shank, the late Muriel Siebert and Napoleon Brandford, III (retired).

Suzanne Shank is the Chairwoman, CEO, founder and majority owner of the firm. Additional stakeholders of Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C. are Henry Cisneros, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Principal, William Thompson, Jr., Chief Administrative Officer, Gary Hall, National Head of Investment Banking, and Sean Duffy, Managing Director and Head of Institutional Sales.

In November 2014, with the acquisition of Siebert Capital Markets, Siebert Cisneros Shank expanded its services from municipal investment banking to include debt and equity underwriting, investment banking and execution services. The firm employs more than 80 full-time employees and has offices across the nation and Underwriting, Sales & Trading desks in New York City and Oakland, California.

About The Williams Capital Group, L.P.: The Williams Capital Group, L.P., is a full service investment bank serving institutional investors, corporations and governments. As a close-knit team committed to providing customized, best-in-class solutions for our clients, WCG’s first priority is strong client relationships.

Founded in 1994 by Christopher J. Williams, The Williams Capital Group, L.P., has been consistently ranked among the most active underwriters of publicly traded equity and investment grade corporate debt offerings. In 2015, the company was ranked #1 most active Co-Manager of U.S. investment-grade, new-issue debt financings, full credit given to each manager by Thomson Reuters.

The Williams Capital Group, L.P., is headquartered in New York and is committed to philanthropy and responsible corporate citizenship.