thunder road

just can't imagine the buy side

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/piper-jaffray-completes-thunderroad-motorcycle-190100388.html

Piper Jaffray Companies (PJC), a leading investment bank and asset management firm, is pleased to announce ThunderRoad Financial, LLC through its issuer affiliate, ThunderRoad Motorcycle Trust 2016-1, issued its Series 2016-1 Asset-Backed Notes totaling $59.72 million, consisting of:

• $47,780,000 senior Class A Notes carrying an A- rating from Morningstar Credit Ratings, and
• $11,940,000 of subordinate, unrated Class B Notes.

Based in Reno, Nevada, ThunderRoad is a specialty motorcycle lender established in 2014 that works closely with a network of dealers in more than 30 states to provide financing to customers purchasing motorcycles, UTVs, ATVs, and other power sports equipment. The company finances all major American, European, and Japanese makes, and has purchased more than $70 million in installment sales contracts in its first two years of activity.

Piper Jaffray served as sole placement agent for the Series 2016-1 transaction after having arranged a $100 million warehouse facility for the company in 2015.

Piper Jaffray fell 16%. The financial firm reported first-quarter results that included a 2% drop in adjusted revenue, and a 44% decline in adjusted net income. Assets under management plunged by more than a third, to $7.5 billion, as of the end of the quarter, and Piper's returns on equity were substantially lower than year-ago levels, as well. As CEO Andrew Duff put it, "The strength in [our Advisory business] was in contrast to the challenging markets confronted by the industry in the first quarter."

Piper is just one of many investment managers and related companies that are having to deal with adverse impacts from the volatile markets so far in 2016; but what's somewhat surprising is that the rebound in the stock market toward the end of the first quarter didn't seem to have as much of an impact as investors would have hoped. Looking forward, Piper will have to work harder to retain existing customers, and attract new capital in order to maximize its success.