Top Financial News
Fri, 13 Aug 1999, 10:31pm EDT
Credit Suisse's Burnham Leaving for New Softbank Venture Capital Fund
By Randy Whitestone
Credit Suisse's Burnham Leaves for Softbank Fund (Update2)
(Adds Softbank comments, details in 1st-3rd, 6th, 8th-10th,
last paragraphs .)
San Francisco, Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Burnham, who
helped define the Internet brokerage industry by compiling its
first rankings and statistics, is leaving Credit Suisse First
Boston Corp. to become general partner of a new $1.25 billion
Softbank Corp. venture capital fund.
Burnham, 28, joins Softbank Capital Partners on Monday,
after 2 1/2 years at Credit Suisse. He will be one of four
general partners of the fund, along with Ron Fisher, Charles Lax
and Masayoshi Son, the billionaire chief executive of Tokyo-based
Softbank.
Mary Meeker, an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean
Witter & Co., was among several people the firm originally sought
for the job, said a person familiar with the recruiting effort.
The new fund finished raising money a month ago, receiving
$600 million from its parent and the remainder from outsiders. It
is investing in companies likely to go public within a year and
those that have recently gone public, Burnham said. It has
invested $375 million in five electronic commerce companies,
including 1-800-Flowers.com Inc., Global Sports Inc., Optimark
Technologies Inc., Webhire Inc. and Webvan Group Inc.
``It's something I've always been interested in, but I
didn't want to do it with just any venture firm,' Burnham said.
``With their strategic relationships and industry knowledge,
Softbank offers a lot more than just money. Plus it's a full
general partnership.'
Burnham's move is the latest in a series of job changes by
securities analysts who follow Internet companies and are taking
advantage of a hot market for their specialized knowledge as
firms develop strategies for online businesses. Burnham is known
for his widely watched industry rankings, first compiled in early
1997 when online trading volume was a fraction of what it is now.
J. Neil Weintraut left Hambrecht & Quist Group last year to
help start a venture fund affiliated with Hummer Winblad venture
Partners. Bill Gurley, a former colleague of Burnham's at CSFB,
left last year to become a partner at Hummer Winblad and has
since moved to Benchmark Capital. Jonathan Cohen left Merrill
Lynch & Co. this year to become research chief at Wit Capital
Corp.
Research Staff
Burnham will develop a research staff for Softbank, and will
be based in San Francisco before relocating to Softbank's main
Silicon Valley office in Mountain View, California, by next year.
Lax said he first met Burnham in March.
``He was the best analyst in the online financial services
industry, and we wanted to grab him just at the point where rock
stardom hit,' Lax said. ``We had to build a team, and we needed
someone to look at where we were going rather than just doing
deals.'
Softbank Capital Partners is Softbank Corp.'s second venture
arm. An older partnership, Softbank Technology Ventures, focuses
on investments in companies that are earlier in their
development.
Softbank Corp. is Japan's largest distributor of packaged
software and hardware, and has stakes in more than 60 Internet-
related companies.
It owns about 69 percent of magazine publisher Ziff-Davis
Inc., 26 percent of Yahoo! Inc., the No. 1 Internet directory,
and 27 percent of E*Trade Group Inc., the No. 2 Internet
brokerage. It also owns smaller stakes in electronic commerce
companies such as Cybercash Inc., E-Loan Inc. and Insweb Corp.
In Japan, Softbank owns ZDNet Japan, as well as 51 percent
of Yahoo Japan Corp., 60 percent of GeoCities Japan Corp., 50
percent of Broadcast.com Japan K.K., 60 percent of E-Loan Japan
K.K., and 58 percent of E*Trade Japan K.K.
Selling Businesses
Last month, Softbank said it plans to sell all of its non-
Internet businesses. It sold its 80 percent stake in Kingston
Technology Co. back to the founders of the company that makes
computer memory drives, while Ziff-Davis hired Morgan Stanley
Dean Witter & Co. to help it consider selling some or all of its
businesses to boost its share price.
Softbank also hired Rex Golding, former co-head of
investment banking for technology companies at Morgan Stanley
Dean Witter & Co., as a venture partner.
Burnham was with CSFB for about 18 months after three months
at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown and a year at Piper Jaffray Cos. A
former consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Burnham has a
bachelor's degree from Washington University.
Ryan Moore, an assistant to BancBoston Robertson Stephens
analyst Keith Benjamin, joins Softbank Capital Monday as an
analyst, Lax said. |
