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Frank Quattrone

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Frank Quattrone
Frank Quattrone at Moët Hennessy Financial Times Club Dinner, San Francisco, September 2011
Born1955 (age 68–69)
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
Stanford Graduate School of Business
OccupationInvestment banker
SpouseDenise

Frank Quattrone (born 1955) is an American technology investment banker who started technology sector franchises at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse First Boston. He helped bring dozens of technology companies public during the 1990s tech boom, including Netscape, Cisco, and Amazon.com. Later, he was prosecuted for interfering with a government probe into Credit Suisse First Boston's behavior in allocating "hot" IPOs. The case was eventually dropped. He was earning roughly $120 million a year during his peak at the firm.[1] Quattrone is now head of investment banking firm Qatalyst Group, which he founded in March 2008.[2]

Life and career

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Quattrone grew up in Philadelphia and attended St. Joseph's Preparatory School on an academic scholarship. He was admitted to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with honors. Following business school at Stanford University, he began work at Morgan Stanley's technology investment banking group.[3]

In 2003, Quattrone was confronted with evidence of allegedly incriminating emails in a widely publicized series of trials. Some of the evidence included Quattrone forwarding to his entire staff an email with the subject 'Re: Time to clean up those files' after being told Credit Suisse First Boston was under investigation by a grand jury.[4] The first trial resulted in a hung jury. The second trial resulted in a conviction.[5] On appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Quattrone's conviction, ruling, based in part upon the Supreme Court case Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States[6] that Quattrone's jury had been given erroneous jury instructions.[1][7] The appeals court also agreed with the defense that in the interest of justice, subsequent proceedings should take place in front of a different judge.

On August 22, 2006, Quattrone reached a deferred prosecution agreement, which allowed him to avoid prison time, "leading legal observers to label the agreement an exoneration."[8] The National Association of Securities Dealers also dropped their charges. It was stated that he "plan[s] to resume [his] business career."[9] According to reports, Mr. Quattrone would receive $100 million to $550 million in overdue compensation, so long as he would abide by an agreement and would not break the law for a year. Credit Suisse had paid for Quattrone's legal costs.

Since 2004, Frank Quattrone and his wife Denise have supported the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP)[10] based at Santa Clara University School of Law. Quattrone is Chair of the NCIP Advisory Board and an active fund-raiser for the project. At the NCIP inaugural Justice for All Awards Dinner in March 2008, Quattrone accepted the Leadership Award.

Qatalyst Group

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In March 2008, Quattrone founded Qatalyst Group, a high-end corporate advisory firm focused on technology. Almost immediately after the firm issued its founding press release, it was reported to be advising Google on the Yahoo takeover deal pending with Microsoft.[11]

Qatalyst has since advised on some of the most high-profile assignments in the industry. It represented Data Domain on its sale to EMC, nearly doubling the firm's purchase price, and represented struggling mobile device maker Palm in its sale to Hewlett-Packard.

The success of Data Domain sale was followed by the bidding war for 3Par, which concluded in Hewlett Packard paying more than double the 3Par's value on the public markets. Netezza (on its sale to IBM) and Isilon (on its sale to EMC) were other storage clients advised by Qatalyst in 2010.

The success of 2010 was overshadowed by Qatalyst's assignments in 2011. Qatalyst advised Riot Games on its sale to Tencent, Kosmix on its sale to Walmart, Atheros on its sale to Qualcomm, Zong on its sale to eBay, PopCap on its sale to EA, National Semiconductor on its sale to Texas Instruments, Autonomy on its sale to Hewlett Packard, Motorola Mobility on its sale to Google, and Netlogic on its sale to Broadcom, among many others.

References

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  1. ^ a b Smith, Randall (March 21, 2006). "Court Decides For Quattrone, Reversing Verdict". The Wall Street Journal.
  2. ^ "Frank Quattrone Launches Technology Banking Firm". silicontap.com. March 18, 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
  3. ^ Indap, Sujeet (13 June 2016). "Tech banker Frank Quattrone rides high again". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  4. ^ "Confidential Communication". Wall Street Journal. 2 October 2003.
  5. ^ ""Quattrone Prosecutor Plays Fast and Loose"". Forbes.com, May 4, 2004. May 4, 2004.
  6. ^ Cases - All terms | The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law
  7. ^ "Wall Street Banker Quattrone Wins Right to New Trial (Update9)". Bloomberg. March 20, 2006.
  8. ^ Guynn, Jessica (August 25, 2010). "Quattrone triumphant, his future wide open / Deal with U.S. prosecutors may presage banker's return". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  9. ^ "Power Banker Settles Criminal Case". CBS News. August 22, 2006.
  10. ^ "Santa Clara Law: Home for Northern California Innocence Project". Archived from the original on 2008-05-13. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
  11. ^ "Google Taps Quattrone to Advise on Yahoo". The New York Times. April 10, 2008.
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