KBW was located on the 89th floor of Tower 2, which was the second building hit but the first to fall. According to Neil Shapiro of Tri-Media, the firm that is handling press relations for KBW, the company had 117 employees normally based at the World Trade Center. Although there has been only one confirmed death, 66 additional employees are missing and presumed dead.
"There were 67 people lost. A lot of them were old friends. That's kind of a blow in fifteen minutes," said Keefe. "They've lost some key people. I've volunteered to help replace some of them. Just time's going to tell."
Keefe established many of the company's policies. He made it a rule that only active KBW employees could own KBW stock. There were no outside shareholders.
Within six months of leaving KBW, Keefe sold his stock. The company is still 100 percent employee-owned.
Keefe also chose not to pay his employees by commission, like most Wall Street firms. "We're all going to work for the same company. We're all going to get the same bonuses. We're working for a team," Keefe said.
Keefe explained that if there were only $20,000 to pay commissions with, everybody would be fighting for that $20,000. Keefe said that he didn't want "one salesman fighting with another salesman."
The firm has led its competitors in merger transactions, which, according to Keefe, "are a very profitable part of business." In 1985, KBW did 15 mergers, while Morgan Stanley had nine. In the first quarter of this year, KBW had already done 10 mergers.
"We invested our own money in the [investments] we were talking to our clients about," he said. For some reason, this strategy is "strangely uncommon," Keefe added.
Keefe said KBW substantially outperformed the market. "This was a good place to put one's money ... The firm was successful because they knew more about more companies than anybody else," Keefe said.
Despite losing over half of its New York workforce, the company is still functioning. Law firms that have worked with KBW have offered temporary office space. KBW also has branches in Hartford and Boston, which are picking up all of the stock trading. "Hartford and Boston are equipped to trade stock, but New York was the trading hub," said Shapiro. "We're going to rebuild," he added.
According to Executive Director of Alumni and Parent Programs Betsy Cannon Smith, four Amherst graduates are employed with KBW in Hartford. As far as she knew, there were none in the New York branch. Shapiro said all the personnel records were lost and could not determine where any of the employees went to college.