Andrew Duff has led two corporate makeovers at Piper Jaffray. As CEO of the Minneapolis-based securities firm, Duff guided the spinoff of Piper from U.S. Bank in 2003, undoing a flawed 1998 merger. His next big step was the August 2006 sale of the firm’s retail brokerage to Swiss financial giant UBS. What’s left is an investment-banking business focused on growth sectors of the economy, including technology and health care.
Now Duff and his team must prove that a firm focused on mid-cap companies can dance nimbly between the two poles of the financial services industry: on one hand, competing against the balance sheets and clout of the New York megabanks, and on the other, wrestling business away from relationship-oriented boutique firms. Investors will be watching in 2007 to see if a standalone Piper can pull off what Duff described last summer as an exceptional opportunity. The company’s stock price (NYSE: PJC) was in the upper $60s in late October, nearly doubled from around $35 a year earlier.
