Piper Jaffray Agrees to Acquire Weeden & Co. for $42 Million

Piper Jaffray Cos. agreed to buy Weeden & Co. for $42 million, augmenting the Minneapolis-based investment bank’s equity trading and research division.

Weeden Chief Executive Officer Lance Lonergan will oversee the combined business as Piper Jaffray’s head of global equity execution, according to a statement Feb. 25. Weeden, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, helps institutional investors trade stocks, while Piper Jaffray has a research division and investment bank.

The European Union’s year-old MiFID II makes brokerages charge separately for research and trading, upending the traditional business model that bundled them together and putting pressure on smaller firms to merge. Though mandated ...