Minorities and women are finally getting a seat at the IPO underwriting table

Minorities and women are finally getting a seat at the IPO underwriting table

Highly anticipated last month was led by Wall Street heavy hitters and . But the extensive list of underwriters also included boutique minority-owned firms Ramirez & Co. and Siebert Williams Shank. Of the 17 firms that helped underwrite the , four were owned by minorities, women or military veterans, a category known as MWVBEs. It's becoming a trend: 13 of the 25 biggest IPOs of U.S. tech companies in the past year included two or more such firms, according to FactSet. Tech companies and Wall Street banks, long run and controlled predominantly by white men, came under intense pressure in mid-2020 to improve their diversity after the police murder of George Floyd and the that followed. Companies made to do better, creating social justice philanthropic programs, commiting to more diverse hiring practices, and adding for minority candidates, among other moves. At the time, the IPO market was still mostly closed from the Covid-19 shutdowns and subsequent economic downturn. It slowly reopened in July and August and then flung open in September, when held the on record. In Snowflake's IPO, the cloud database vendor included four MWVBEs as underwriters — the same four that Robinhood later used. share sale, which came