Defining Clients First, Always

Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends of Jefferies,

Last month we sent an internal note to our team explaining how Jefferies is actually in the “Hospitality Business.”  As we recently announced our fiscal third quarter 2026 results, we began thinking about why Jefferies has had such strong momentum.  While our people, culture, capital, strategy, commitment to execute, and brand will always be critical factors in determining Jefferies’ success, the most critical is the very simple, even obvious, motto that we all live by at our firm: “Clients First, Always.”

We know each of you has your own unique client constituencies to prioritize, so we wanted to elaborate on what this phrase means to all of us at Jefferies.  We hope that at least some of these themes regarding the principle of “clients first” will resonate with you as you lead your business to ever greater heights.

Here is what “Clients First, Always,” means to us at Jefferies:

1. Us Second, Always.  You know you have prioritized a client first when you give them advice that will serve them, but not immediately benefit you.  When you agree with the client that the right advice is to do the deal or the trade, there is a wonderful “win-win” scenario with high fives internally and externally.  When the right client advice is NOT to transact, the hand-slapping should still follow.  Trust and true partnership are cemented when the right advice given is to “stand down.”
2. There is no “short-term success.”  Each of us lives with the pressure to perform consistently in the short term.  It goes without saying that there is no place in our industry, or virtually any industry, for people who don’t have an intense, daily sense of urgency about their work.  However, if we serve our clients by exclusively prioritizing their short-term success, we may lead them to miss the forest for the trees, and the accumulated daily wins will not align with the client’s true long-term success objectives.
3. Professional AND personal.  As we said in our “Hospitality” note, our business is about people.  Sure, analytics, capital allocation, business opportunities, and important pools of investment dollars command our attention every single day.  But ultimately, truly prioritizing our clients demands knowing both their professional AND personal goals.  We are fully embracing AI throughout Jefferies, but as we tell our juniors (and even our seniors), knowing your client, understanding their personal objectives, and embracing them fully as partners to assist them will always, always remain the competitive advantage we have regardless of the future.  It is a big advantage.  The uniquely human traits of empathy, compassion, and emotional intelligence are required by each of us if our goal is to have a firm that lives by: “Clients First, Always.”
4. Put our masks on first.  Flight attendants tell adults that in an emergency, they must put their own masks on first before helping others.  Likewise, if Jefferies’ people, culture, capital base, reputation, product capabilities, geographical reach, or technology are not in tip-top shape, our firm will not be able to help any of our clients meet their short-term needs or, more significantly, their long-term aspirations.  Doing the heavy lifting internally to keep Jefferies strong, focused, and able to serve each of you must always be paramount.  This requires attention and hard work, and we can never forget why we are so committed to this continuous investment.
5. No wilting flowers.  “The customer is always right.”  Virtually every business shares this credo, especially the “hospitality business.”  Well, please don’t hold it against us when we say with all humility, “nobody is always right.”  We, of course, include ourselves in the “sometimes wrong” category, and when you examine yourselves honestly, our suspicion is that one or two of you clients might, on the rare occasion, also be wrong.  In the end, we are just the (hopefully) trusted advisors and you are the decision makers.  But the last thing you want from any of your advisors is for us to be nothing more than “yes men” and “yes women.”  The selective moments when we disagree are often the most important to get right.  To truly serve you, we must be able to graciously stand up straight and explain our own perspectives, information, or experiences that might cause you to reassess your assumptions or your decision.  Once you make a decision, we march full force alongside you.  We won’t hesitate to optimize, pivot, or say you were right, and we were wrong.  But as a firm, we believe we owe it to each of you to give you our best counsel, even if it may not be what you want to hear at the time.
6. It always matters most in crunch time.  It is easy to put clients first when things are going well.  We have been doing this long enough, and with enough firsthand experience, to know you only learn who is truly in your corner when things are painful and ugly.  We have been the beneficiaries of many of you standing by us, as a firm and personally, when we have faced our own set of significant challenges.  The bonds that developed then are the most honest and secure partnerships one can build.  As a firm, we pride ourselves on having 6,577 colleagues who wholeheartedly embrace what it means to stand by their clients and friends through moments of macro, micro, and personal turmoil.  The world is uncertain, and to us, prioritizing clients takes on an even higher meaning when the “going gets tough,” as it invariably does.

We know each of you has your own beliefs about what it means to prioritize your own clients in your businesses and companies.  We also know that there is no perfect recipe in prioritizing clients, but we wanted to share the logic behind this foundational principle of Jefferies.  Without each of you and your own clients that you serve, there would be no Jefferies.  Please know that every one of us at Jefferies stands ready to assist each of you in serving your clients in every way possible.  Thank you for your partnership, trust, and friendship.

Clients first, always,

Rich and Brian