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Technology Stocks : CAWS - Wireless Cable (New and Improved) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zorro who wrote (4879)	3/30/1998 7:14:00 AM
From: Jon Taulbee	Respond to of 5812

SAN FRANCISCO -- Union Bank of Switzerland's San Francisco-based technology investment-banking group is splintering after being raided for talent by at least five other banking groups, including Merrill Lynch & Co. The courtship of the UBS team, which has led to the departure of six of the team's top investment bankers and analysts plus the possible exit of the team's top banker, is a sign of the intensity of demand for banking talent as the amount of business generated by technology companies grows. In the past three years, technology companies have accounted for nearly a quarter of all the initial public offerings in the U.S. -- and that's excluding telecommunications companies. Those deals accounted for about 18% of the more than $123 billion raised by U.S. companies in that time period. The bottom line: Technology is where the money is, and the big investment banks that don't have strong practices in that area are feeling the pain. Despite a concerted effort by Merrill to hire the entire UBS team, however, the only defections by bankers thus far have been to Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc., which also grabbed two of the group's equity analysts. Other suitors for all or part of the team included Bear Stearns & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston and several large European banks. The UBS technology group, with 30 investment bankers and 12 senior research analysts, was considered especially ripe for the picking because of the uncertainty created recently by the bank's pending merger with Swiss Bank Corp. "It got so nuts that we were getting two to three head-hunter calls per day -- and probably half of those were looking to hire the whole team,'' said Kenneth Rivera, an investment banker who ran UBS semiconductor and electronics-banking talent and is headed to DLJ. Also going to DLJ are Michael Dorsey, second in command at the UBS group, who will co-manage the technology group at DLJ, and James Socas, who ran UBS's West Coast software practice. And Mr. Dorsey said he expects several other defections for DLJ over the next few days. Meanwhile, James Feuille, the head of UBS's technology group, is negotiating a move to a senior management position at Volpe Brown Whelan & Co., a boutique investment bank in San Francisco, according to people familiar with the situation. Last week, two UBS analysts -- Charles Boucher, who followed semiconductors in San Francisco, and New York-based Joe Farley, who covered software -- also departed for DLJ. And New York-based Jonathan Cohen, who was hired by UBS from Smith Barney last June to follow Internet companies, was hired by Merrill. Merrill Lynch had courted the entire UBS group in hopes of hiring the lot of them. Dan Bayly, the New York-based head of investment banking at Merrill, spent at least two days recently in San Francisco talking to the UBS tech team, and several members of the group had met with Scott Ryles, head of Merrill's Palo Alto technology group. Neither UBS nor Merrill would comment on the issue. In the past two years, Merrill's technology team has grown from 12 to more than 50 bankers, but the firm has yet to win a significant number of tech deals. Last year, Merrill contemplated a purchase of Hambrecht & Quist LLC, but the deal fell though because of culture clashes. H&Q is now the lone member of the triumvirate of boutique San Francisco investment banks that once dominated the sector. Last year, Montgomery Securities was bought by NationsBank Corp., and Robertson Stephens & Co. was purchased by BankAmerica Corp.