By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Jefferies stock (NYSE:JEF) traded 1.6% higher in Friday’s premarket as high momentum in the investment banking business drove the company’s third-quarter results well past estimates.
It has been a boom time for investment bankers as the pandemic-fueled craze for deal-making and fund-raising has meant big business in fees for industry professionals, a large part of which came Jefferies’ way.
With an expanded roster of 1,200 investment bankers, the bank arranged 424 separate transactions for 407 different clients with an aggregate deal value of $238 billion in the third quarter.
The average value per transaction touched an all-time high and was 48% higher than the same period a year ago.
As a result, revenue from investment banking doubled to $1.18 billion and was more than 70% of the total net revenue. The company started the current quarter with an investment banking order pipeline at a record high.
Third-quarter net revenue rose 19% to $1.65 billion. Profit per share almost doubled to $1.5.