To: Bob Kim who wrote (142572 ) 5/27/2002 1:37:02 AM From: H James Morris Read Replies (1) | Respond to As an investment banker in analyst's clothing, consider Anthony Noto of Goldman Sachs. On May 31 he ranked 32e-commerce companies into 3 groups in terms of likely survival. Of the 8 winners, all except Amazon.com were Goldman Sachs investment banking clients. Only one of the 9 middle tier and none of the 15 losers were in the Goldman fold. His ranking criteria, "key success factors," were the same ones the firm used to pick companies to underwrite. It makes sense, Noto argued, since "underwriting criteria are research-based."Maybe so, but it's telling that his winners and losers have performed almost equally badly. If you bought his winners on June 1, by Dec. 26 you had lost an average 73%. With the 15 losers the average loss was 72%. Noto contends rather unconvincingly that his winners list shouldn't be viewed as buy recommendations. And he insists he has nothing to do with picking initial offering clients, although he admits the firm won't go forward with a deal if he doesn't like the company.
