Thomas Weisel Partners, the San Francisco merchant bank formed by the founder of Montgomery Securities, has hired 22 partners since Jan. 1- including 10 from Mr. Weisel's former firm.
With these hires the firm has a staff of 165, including 57 partners. Executives said they expect to have 65 partners and a staff of 250 in all by the end of February, as Wall Street wraps up its annual bonus season.
Mr. Weisel-who sold Montgomery Securities to NationsBank Corp. a year before its merger with BankAmerica Corp.-left Montgomery in September in a dispute about control of the firm.
His new venture is focusing on merger-and-acquisition advisement and equities.
Other bank-owned securities firms have also supplied Mr. Weisel's company with talent. Three of the firm's recent hires joined from BancBoston Robertson Stephens, the San Francisco-based securities subsidiary of BankBoston Corp.
Another three joined from BT Alex. Brown, Bankers Trust Corp.'s securities subsidiary, and two joined from Salomon Smith Barney, a unit of Citigroup.
At least one new addition brought with him a relationship that already has yielded business.
Last week Thomas Weisel Partners led a $375 million secondary stock offering for Jabil Circuit Inc., an electronics manufacturer, largely through the work of Jim Savage, an electronics manufacturing analyst the firm hired last month from BT Alex. Brown, a spokeswoman said.
Other recent mandates for the firm include advising Yahoo! Inc. on its $4.7 billion proposed acquisition of Web site company Geocities Inc.
Montgomery Securities took Yahoo! public in 1996, when the securities firm was still privately held. Goldman Sachs & Co. advised GeoCities on the merger agreement announced last week.
Thomas Weisel Partners also began institutional sales and trading on Feb. 1, making markets in 140 growth stocks, a spokeswoman said.
In addition, it is raising money for a private equity fund, something Mr. Weisel did not have at his old firm. A portion of that money will be from the partnership, with the rest raised from venture capitalists and private equity funds, the spokeswoman said.
