Important update on the H&Q/Chase merger...<g> Bloomberg updated the merger story too late in the day for most of you to see; so I've thoughtfully posted an excerpt here and put the relevant material in bold.
~Rose~
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Case, of Hambrecht and Quist, sees "new opportunities" in Chase merger
....Daniel Case III, the chairman and chief executive of H&Q, said the company sold itself to Chase, after about six months of talks, because its clients sometimes needed more banking products than H&Q could provide. The firm also faced increasing competition from other banks opening in Silicon Valley to serve the burgeoning technology industry. Hambrecht & Quist's market share in Internet initial public offerings has fallen to 4.4 percent thus far this year, down from 15 percent for 1996, according to Newark, New Jersey-based Securities Data Co.
Case indicated the merger could give Hambrecht and Quist new opportunities to reverse this trend, most notably by allowing them to remove what he called "a truckload of organizational deadwood". "Highest on this list", he said, speaking candidly with reporters after the announcement of the merger, "would be our lame-brained, myopic, nitwit corps of so-called 'analysts', who've made us the laughingstock of the entire Valley. I mean, take that idiot Snyder, who's managed to maintain a 'hold' rating on Qualcomm this entire godforsaken year while it's going up by 500% underneath him! Honestly, the guy makes Dilbert's pointy-haired boss look like a friggin' Einstein!".
When questioned more closely on the likely timing of any layoffs in the analyst division, Case demurred. "We actually don't anticipate any formal 'downsizing' per se will be necessary", he said. "What we're simply going to do is to give all the guys there shiny new white Lexuses as a 'bonus', then tell them all they've been transferred to Chase's new 'branch office' in the Bedford-Styuvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. After a week in Bed-Sty we figure we can take out what's left of them in a shoebox." Case further indicated that such a move would be immediately accretive to earnings, with the additional benefit of "making this whole joint smell better right away".
Hambrecht and Quist closed at 48 11/16, up over seven points on news of the merger. Qualcomm continued its usual relentless upward climb, closing at 193 5/8, a record high.
(c) 1999 Bloombird News Service. All rights reversed. |
