We expect equity and debt financing activity to increase in 2024 as companies raise needed capital to execute on their strategic plans. Turning to investment banking managing director headcount. We finished the year with 169 managing directors, up a net 10 from last year. A significant component of our 2023 MD growth was driven by internal promotions across our industry and product teams, highlighting our success at developing talent, which remains a priority for us. We also continue to focus on building a culture of growth that makes us a destination of choice for top tier talent. Over the last 10 years, we have grown MD headcount by an average of 13% annually. Given this growth, we remain intentional about strategically managing headcount and driving productivity while consistently looking for opportunities to strengthen the platform.
Before handing it off to Deb, let me make a couple of concluding remarks. Over the last decade, we have executed on our strategic vision and delivered strong growth and shareholder returns. We have built a diverse and resilient platform with significant scale, margin and cash flow. We continue to focus on growing annual corporate investment banking revenues to $2 billion by scaling industry groups, product share gains, increasing transaction and fee size, continuing our momentum in growth with private equity clients and corporate development. Now I will turn the call over to Deb to discuss our public finance and brokerage businesses.
Deb Schoneman: Thanks, Chad, and congratulations to both Tim and Kate. I’ll begin with an update on our public finance business. Market conditions were challenging for most of the year in this business due to higher nominal rates and weak investor demand. However, conditions improved during the fourth quarter. We generated $29 million of municipal financing revenues for the quarter, up 47% sequentially as the better market conditions allowed us to execute a few more high-yield offerings. For 2023, we generated $83 million of municipal financing revenues, down 23% from last year. We underwrote 413 municipal-negotiated transactions raising over $12 billion of par value for our clients. Based on the number of municipal-negotiated underwritings for the year, we maintained our number 2 ranking.
The number of new issuances in the overall market for 2023 declined approximately 13% from the prior year. High-yield new issuances decreased approximately 21% and due to higher interest rates for issuers and depressed demand from buyers. This impacted our performance as a meaningful component of our public finance business is in high-yield specialty sectors. As we look ahead to 2024, market conditions continue to be challenging. However, declining rates and more investor demand have us cautiously optimistic that momentum will continue. Our diversified middle-market model is a key differentiator in the marketplace, and we’re excited about our growth prospects for this business. Turning to our equity brokerage business. Equity markets rallied during the quarter to finish the year strong, and volumes increased 8% compared to the third quarter.
We generated revenues of $55 million for the fourth quarter, up 9% sequentially and down modestly year-over-year. For the full year, equity brokerage revenues of $210 million were consistent with 2022. Performance was broad-based with our high-touch program and derivatives trading, all generating strong activity. Market share gains in 2023 offset the declines from lower market volatility and volumes compared to the prior year. The strength of our platform attracted over 1,700 unique clients, and we traded 10.7 billion shares on their behalf. Strong collaboration between our fundamental analysts and our macro research analysts, continues to bring a valuable and differentiated view to our clients, recognized by increasing client votes. We maintain one of the largest research platforms in the small and mid-cap space with approximately 1,000 stocks under coverage.
As we look forward to 2024, we expect a more challenging market environment with a lower fee pool and likely less volatility. We continue to gain market share, which should help mitigate these headwinds. Lastly, turning to fixed income. We generated revenues of $48 million for the fourth quarter of 2023, up 19% compared to the sequential quarter and down modestly year-over-year. A perception that interest rate increases by the Fed are finished helped motivate clients to move from the sidelines and take advantage of the higher yields. Our depository clients were active in repositioning their portfolios ahead of the new year and we were engaged on multiple balance sheet yield-optimization assignment. For 2023, we generated $168 million of fixed income revenues, down 14% from the prior year.
Market conditions were challenging during the first nine months of the year as interest rate volatility and liquidity concerns in the banking sector muted client activity. We continue to invest in this business, and we made several targeted hires in 2023 that increased our product depth and client specialization. The current market dislocations should provide opportunity for more targeted hiring in 2024 as we look to continue elevating our platform. From an outlook perspective, we expect clients to be more active in 2024 as the fixed income asset class represents an increasingly attractive investment opportunity. Now I will turn the call over to Kate to review our financial results and provide an update on capital use.
Kate Clune: Thanks, Deb, Chad and Tim. Let me begin by saying how happy I am to be here at Piper Sandler. I’m honored to be named the new CFO. I’d like to thank Tim for his continuing invaluable support and mentorship during this transition. Before reviewing our non-GAAP financial results, let me discuss a couple of items impacting our GAAP results this quarter. For the fourth quarter of 2023, our GAAP results included $5.2 million of non-compensation expense related to potential regulatory settlements with the SEC and CFTC regarding recordkeeping requirements for business-related communications as well as the related legal costs. GAAP results also include a $3.8 million restructuring charge associated with headcount reductions as we continue to align headcount with our 2024 outlook.
