Customers to BankAmerica: Don't Mess with Robertson Stephens

Clients of Robertson Stephens & Co. have a piece of advice for BankAmerica Corp. as it prepares to buy the investment banking firm: Leave its personnel and culture intact.

After 28 years of carefully tending to a niche of high-technology and biotechnology companies, San Francisco-based Robertson Stephens has built a reputation for giving nimble clients good analyst coverage, excellent service, and a lot of attention.

Early this week, some of those clients said they were excited to learn that the firm had agreed to be bought by the giant BankAmerica. But they added that their excitement would be short-lived if key Robertson bankers chose to leave.

"If there is an exodus of key people, there will be an exodus of banking relationships," said Jonah Shacknai, chairman and chief executive officer at Medicis Pharmaceutical, Phoenix.

"A lot of investment banks have the same capabilities institutionally, but it's the confidence in the Robertson Stephens personnel relationships" that keeps its clients, he said. Robertson led a $95 million secondary offering for Medicis last year.

Stephen Bennion, chief financial officer of WorldTalk Communications, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company Robertson took public last year, said the BankAmerica acquisition is "a real positive" for the investment bank. It will give the firm increased access to capital that will help Robertson Stephens trade and support initial public offerings in the aftermarket, he said.

But like other clients, he said the positives he sees assume that the "quality of Robertson Stephens personnel will remain."

"It doesn't make sense to change anything," Mr. Bennion said. "When you acquire a firm like Robertson, or you acquire an Alex. Brown, the only thing you really acquire is the people and the expertise of those people."

That fact does not seem to be lost on San Francisco-based BankAmerica. A substantial portion of the $540 million in cash the bank is paying for Robertson Stephens will be used to retain the firm's 60 key bankers for the next three to four years.

Still, some of the investment bank's clients said they are taking a wait-and-see stance.

Peter Downs, manager of treasury operations at BroadVision, a Los Altos, Calif., Internet software firm Robertson took public last year, questions how long things can remain the same, given the difference of culture between commercial and investment banking.

"It could possibly change," he said. "It depends on how long they keep their key personnel there. Who knows how long that will be ...? Who knows how long they will stick around?"

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