Thomas Killian

Thomas Killian is a managing director in the financial services group at Piper Sandler.

Previously, he was a principal at Sandler O’Neill + Partners, L.P. His 40+ years in commercial and investment banking includes seven years of commercial banking experience with NationsBank, structuring and arranging leveraged finance transactions, two years with Salomon Brothers transacting capital markets and advisory assignments for a variety of major corporations, five years with J.P. Morgan managing financial advisory and capital raising activities for banks and thrifts in the Western region of the United States, 28 years with Sandler O’Neill, and three years with Piper Sandler advising banks, thrifts, U.S. government agencies and other financial companies on a variety of capital markets, strategic advisory and M&A assignments.

Killian has managed the successful execution of numerous M&A and capital raising transactions. Most recently, he advised the U.S. Treasury on its $9 billion Emerging Capital Investment Program.  He also advised HAFC on their $110 million public offering of subordinated debt, RBB on their $86 million IPO and $55 million private offering of subordinated debt, PCB on their $55 million IPO and the FDIC on the successful least cost resolution of Doral Bank using a multiple acquirer strategy. He co-managed the Sandler O’Neill team responsible for successfully completing 17 pooled trust preferred transactions that raised over $7 billion for approximately 650 financial institutions. Included in Killian's capital raising transactions are eight recapitalization and restructuring transactions that involved complex capital structures designed to preserve tax benefits for the issuing institutions. He functions as a primary resource in structuring and implementing complex capital markets transactions for financial institutions.

Killian has represented Sandler O’Neill in conferences with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and SNL Financial to discuss capital structure, Dodd-Frank and Basel III related issues. His articles have appeared in Bank Accounting & Finance, U.S. Banker and Modern Bankers, a publication of the Peoples Bank of China.

Killian is also a founding board member of Students Bridging the Information Gap, a 501(c)(3) charity that provides computers, books and other support to African schools and orphanages. He has also established two Killian Family Old Well Scholarships for students from New Hanover High School in Wilmington, North Carolina to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Killian holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a John Motley Morehead Merit Scholar, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.