Dick Schober of Piper Sandler: A Primer on Bond Issuance for Irrigation Districts
Before pursuing a bond, irrigation districts should analyze their capital needs, sources of funding, and the affordability of the projected capital plan.
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Dick Schober: Piper Sandler has been in the public finance business for more than 50 years. It is a Minneapolis-based company with divisions covering investment banking, equity research, equity sales and trading, public finance, and fixedincome sales and trading.
Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background.
Irrigation Leader: What are your portfolio responsibilities?
Dick Schober: I have worked in public finance for 35 years in the Seattle area. I started in commercial banking with First Interstate Bank before switching to public finance and working at a small firm in Seattle. I moved to Piper Jaffray, now Piper Sandler, in 1993 and worked there for a little more than 12 years. I then worked for a period of time as a senior investment banker in Goldman Sachs’ public sector and infrastructure banking group. Following my tenure at Goldman, I joined a smaller regional firm that was purchased by Piper Sandler in 2013, bringing me back to the company in a circuitous way.
Dick Schober: I’ve worked for municipal governments all over the West Coast, but for the last several years, I have primarily covered municipal entities in Washington State. Public finance is a unique business: While the types of bond issuers are similar, laws governing debt issuance differ from state to state. For this reason, Piper Sandler is structured with regional offices staffed by municipal professionals who are experts in debt issuance in the states that they cover. There are some exceptions to this, such as health care and housing, which are covered by bankers who are experts in those fields. The types of clients that we work with in our regional offices include cities; counties; school districts; and utility districts, such as water, sewer, and irrigation districts.
Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the history of Piper Sandler.
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s a managing director of public finance investment banking at Piper Sandler, Dick Schober underwrites bond issuance for clients in many sectors, including water, irrigation, and sewer districts. In this interview, he lays out the basic principles of issuing bonds for Irrigation Leader readers.
