How broker dealers dented Wall Street’s huge diversity gap

Broker dealers that qualify as diverse and inclusive firms because of their ownership have been on course for involvement in a record volume of bond deals this year. — Bloomberg

WHEN drugmaker Amgen Inc sold US$24bil of bonds in February to fund its takeover of Horizon Therapeutics Plc, it had 12 banks as joint bookrunners and a further 16 as co-managers on the deal. Eight of the 16 were small investment banks certified as owned by women, minorities or military veterans.

In April, a US$5bil bond sale from Walmart Inc had seven similarly owned investment banks out of 15 co-managers, while on RTX Corp’s US$6bil issue in September, all seven co-managers were like this.