The presence of minority- and women-owned investment banks in the US capital markets is not a new phenomenon. Businesses such Blaylock Van, Seelaus, Loop Capital Markets and Siebert Williams Shank have been operating, in one form or another, since the 1980s and 1990s.
Within the municipal bond markets, in particular, such firms have been competing alongside bigger players for decades, with some success – Siebert Williams Shank, for example, has become a top-10 lead manager. But the going remains tough. And in the corporate bond markets, bigger banks are even more dominant.
