Bill Burgess

Bill Burgess is a managing director and co-head of investment banking in the financial services group at Piper Sandler. Based in the firm’s New York office, he has extensive financial industry experience and maintains a specific focus on mergers and acquisitions and capital raising for depository institutions.

Burgess has been involved in a number of transactions, most recently advising the FDIC on the sale of Silicon Valley Bank to First Citizens and the sale of Signature Bank (NY) to New York Community Bancorp. Additionally, Burgess has advised on the sale of MB Financial to Fifth Third Bancorp; the sale of Private-Bancorp to CIBC; the sale of FirstMerit to Huntington; First Midwest Bancorp’s acquisitions of Standard Bancshares, Northern States Financial, NI Bancshares, Great Lakes Financial and Banco Popular (Chicago); the merger of Baylake Corp and Nicolet Bankshares; the sale of Taylor Capital Group to MB Financial; and First National of Nebraska’s sale of its merchant acquiring business to TYSYS. Burgess has advised clients on equity and debt capital issuances, including Comerica, Wintrust Financial, Associated Banc-Corp, First Busey Corp. and Compeer Financial among others.

Prior to joining Piper Sandler, Burgess was a managing director in the financial institutions group of Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he worked in investment banking for over 10 years. As a senior investment banker, he was responsible for coverage of Midwestern financial institutions, including over 35 publicly traded companies. Burgess has advised clients on a wide range of transactions, including Sears Roebuck in its sale of Sears Credit to Citigroup; Household International in its sale to HSBC Holdings; and U.S. Bancorp in its merger with Firstar Corp. Over the course of his career, Burgess has been involved in more than 50 domestic and cross-border M&A transactions whose total value exceeds $75 billion and over 50 capital underwriting and corporate finance transactions with proceeds of over $25 billion.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Burgess was a Lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1994-1998. His military service included leading a 135-man division on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and two deployments to the Persian Gulf in support of U.N. no-fly zones over Iraq. He was awarded Navy Commendation and Navy Achievement Medals for exemplary performance and leadership during his deployments in the Persian Gulf, South America and the Caribbean.

Burgess holds an MBA degree in finance from the Graduate School of Business at The University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics with honors and distinction from the United States Naval Academy.