Frank Quattrone laments lack of pre-IPO research

Frank Quattrone, who famously beat a long government attempt to convict him of obstruction, is certainly back on the technology industry banking scene. At a recent conference, he lambasted Eliot Spitzer's efforts to separate banking and research, which included rules that apparently make it harder for sell-side analysts to work on pre-IPO companies. Quattrone also said top sell-side analysts have fled Wall Street for hedge funds and private equity because they can no longer get paid the way they could in the dot.com era. The dearth of VC-backed IPOs stems from a host of other factors. I'm not sure the lack of sell-side research at the pre-IPO stage ranks that high. The going-public bar is just so much higher now. In any case, Quattrone's Qatalyst Group seems to be faring well. It is currently advising Google in the Microsoft-Yahoo matter.  

For more:
- here's an article in the San Francisco Chronicle

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