Participants

BRB's tables name 71 kinds of fee. We group them into 14 roles so you can find a firm's work; the grouping is ours, and the table below lists the BRB fee names each role includes (role map 0.4).

• Structuring counts under Underwriter when BRB marks the row as paid by the underwriter, and under Financial advisor otherwise.
• Computer structuring fee counts under Underwriter when BRB marks the row as paid by the underwriter, and under Financial advisor otherwise.
• Net spread counted once. Takedown, management fee, spread expenses and underwriting risk make up the underwriter's spread. Where an issue reports an amount for any of them, its row for the underwriter's net spread (the same spread as one figure) is shown as a cross-check and not added.
• Paid by the underwriter: shown, not added to the issuer's costs. Rows BRB's table marks as paid by the underwriter (whether the underwriter paid the fee) are shown and count in the fees paid to that firm and role, but not in the issuer's one-time costs, per-$1,000 figures or medians.
• The issuer's one-time costs add every other one-time row: not annual fees, not rows paid by the underwriter, not the cross-check. Per $1,000 of par divides them by the issue's par and multiplies by 1,000 (computed here).
• Missing, zero and negative amounts. A row with no amount shows "Not reported" and is added to nothing. A reported $0 counts as $0, in sums and medians. A negative amount is added as reported; where a role's or firm's one-time costs on an issue come to less than $0, that issue is left out of the medians.
• Fees paid adds every amount the firm's or role's rows report, one-time and annual, including rows paid by the underwriter (shown again in their own column), and not the cross-check. Median cost per $1,000 takes the firm's part of the issuer's one-time costs on each issue, divides by the issue's par and multiplies by 1,000, then takes the middle value across the firm's issues (computed here); a firm paid only by the underwriter or only annual fees has none. Par of those issues adds each issue's par once per firm and role.
• Rows with no firm named count in the role totals above but not under any firm.

Firm names merged

BRB's table spells some firms more than one way. We show spellings as one firm only when they differ in nothing but capital letters, periods, commas or spaces (so "L.L.P." is "LLP" and "Inc." is "Inc"); any other difference keeps them apart. The shown name is the spelling used on the most rows. 13 spellings were merged, leaving 796 firms; every merge is listed here.