Piper Jaffray history

Already in his fifties, he needed new blood to keep his business competitive, and in 1917 he convinced Piper and Jaffray to merge their firm with his to form Lane, Piper, and Jaffray, Inc.

The economic boom resumed stronger than ever in 1922 and, seeing the growing profits to be made on Wall Street, Lane, Piper, and Jaffray expanded from commercial paper to investment banking.

By 1944 Piper Jaffray's commercial paper revenues had climbed to $18.2 million.

Nevertheless, in 1954 it set a precedent that few other firms in the industry could match when it appointed Ruth Cranston as its first female partner.

In 1969 Piper also took a step toward becoming a public stock itself when it incorporated, giving its principals the limited financial liability they would need to remain independent as they grew the business.

In July 1972 Piper Jaffray endured much unwelcome publicity when Harry Piper's wife, Virginia, was kidnapped by an unknown group demanding $1 million in ransom.

In 1974 Piper Jaffray reorganized itself into a public holding company, Piper Jaffray Inc., which became the parent company of the operational broker/dealer business, Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood.

In 1978 Piper Jaffray continued its tradition of technological innovation by installing the $4 million "Piper Pipeline," an electronic information and stock monitoring system that gave its customers the same real-time access to Wall Street data as the most sophisticated Manhattan brokerage.

The firm moved into the new 42-story Piper Jaffray Tower in 1985 and in October of the same year opened a new "Piper Capital Management" operation to offer mutual funds and manage the money of pension funds, public asset funds, and large individual accounts.

In 1990 Piper Jaffray opened offices in Denver and Los Angeles, expanded its line of mutual funds to 17, and began installing the latest generation of computerized real-time investment data systems.

In August 1990, Harry Piper, Jr., died, symbolically completing the passing of the baton of leadership to his son Tad that had begun in the 1980s. Its 1991 year-end revenues stood at $267.8 million--a threefold increase in less than a decade.

By 1993 Piper Jaffray had 78 retail offices in 17 states and five straight years of record-setting growth.