Keith Meyers with Keefe, Bruyette and Woods, KBW on Capital Club Radio

Guest: Keith Meyers
On this episode of the Capital Club Radio, Keith Meyers joins chairman and CEO Michael Flock, one of the leading investment bankers in the specialty finance world, to discuss his transition from accounting to investment banking, his work and now management in the debt buying and collection industry and tips to note for those interested in the trends as well as staffing of those in investment banking and debt buying.
Biography
Mr. Meyers is a Managing Director based in Atlanta and leads KBW’s new Financial Services Group, which serves clients in the specialty finance, mortgage finance, securities, alternative asset management, and financial technology sectors.
Mr. Meyers brings more than 17 years of relevant experience serving both strategic and private equity investors in the financial services sector. He comes to KBW from Raymond James where he was a Managing Director in the Financial Services Investment Banking Group. Previously, he served as Head of the Financial Services and Transaction Processing Investment Banking Group at Morgan Keegan & Company. Earlier in his career, he worked in the business advisory and assurance practice at Deloitte and Touche (CPA, inactive).
Mr. Meyers has an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BSBA from Washington University in Saint Louis.
Michael Flock:  How does someone whose working in accounting at Deloitte get into investment banking? How did you make that transition and why?
Keith Meyers:  Accounting and audit is a great stepping stone to other things. Accounting is the benchmark of business, being able to understand the financials is critical to what we do in our business. Always thought of it as a place to start my career. Wanted to get into a more proactive role. In accounting, you’re always looking at what you’ve done. You’re not creating value looking forward. I wanted to move into a role to make things happen. Investment banking is very rewarding career because we have changed the position of the companies we work with. As an investment banker, this is a client-service business. We need people who are engaged and care about what our clients think. We’re a cross between consultants, financial advisors, structuring agents and psychologists.
[4:37] Psychologists - that’s a new one. Why psychologists?
Deals meander many different ways. Many time when we work with clients, this is the biggest transaction of their careers and transformative for the companies we work with. A lot can happen in a deal - positive or negative so a lot of what we do is keep our client’s calm. We joke that deals die 3 times before they close. There’s always times where it’s going to get troubled and you have to make sure you keep everyone’s on board.
[5:18] You kind of answered my next question - what are some of the personal traits investment bankers need to be successful?
It’s usually financial or business-related but the psychology and keeping everyone calm is surprising. We hire talented people from MBA programs and many will say that we do a lot less modelling and structuring than they expected. It’s more positioning of companies, understanding companies and being able to articulate it to potential investors, private equity firms, debt providers, strategics than it is about brute force financial modelling. We can teach all of that. These kids are book smart, next level is how you interact, tell stories and build rapport and be their advocate positioning against someone that’s trying to get the best deal for themselves. Tread carefully to make sure that you have a client and investor who want to continue to work with one another for 5+ years.
[6:52] Really about relationship management as much as it is about numbers.
100% your skill set in investment banking changes as you progress...