Cowen Inc. (COWN)

Cowen Inc. was a New York investment bank and financial services firm. It offered equity research, sales and trading, prime brokerage, investment banking advice and capital raising, mainly for growth companies in healthcare, technology, industrials and consumer sectors. It also ran an investment management arm that included the activist and alternative strategies inherited from Ramius. Its clients included institutional investors, corporations and financial sponsors.

The firm traces its roots to 1918. It was owned for several years by Société Générale before being spun off in a 2006 public offering. In 2009 Cowen combined with Ramius, an alternative asset manager led by Peter Cohen, and the combined company traded on NASDAQ, first as Cowen Group and later as Cowen Inc. under the symbol COWN. The listing gave the firm currency for later deals.

Over the next decade Cowen grew through acquisitions, adding the equity research business of Convergex, institutional brokerage capabilities and a large prime brokerage and outsourced trading operation. Its research coverage of biotechnology and other emerging industries became a key part of its brand, and revenue rose sharply during the 2020 and 2021 boom in equity issuance. The firm also built a sizable outsourced trading and securities finance business.

In August 2022 The Toronto-Dominion Bank agreed to buy Cowen for $39.00 per share in cash, about $1.3 billion, to expand its U.S. capital markets presence. The deal closed on March 1, 2023 and Cowen's stock was delisted from NASDAQ. The business now operates within TD Securities under the TD Cowen name. Leadership, including chief executive Jeffrey Solomon, stayed on to run the combined unit.