underwriter news from FierceFinance

It has been tough to call earnings, when it comes to investment banks. The fact that they all did a lot of proprietary trading, for one thing, made earnings hard to model, among other things.... Read more...

"At WaMu it wasn't about the quality of the loans; it was about the numbers. They didn't care if we were giving loans to people that didn't qualify. Instead, it was 'How many loans did you guys close... Read more...

TheDeal.com notes that investment bankers were once precluded by law from representing a client company in bankruptcy court. That left much of the restructuring business to boutiques, who continue to... Read more...

It's so easy to forget about the auction rate securities mess. But the fact remains that more than $300 billion remains tied up in this near-frozen market. Issuers, lots of municipalities and... Read more...

While the big guns in the industry are saddled with lots of "hung" leveraged loans, smaller players may be sensing a rare opportunity. Consider UBS. It took relatively small write downs on its... Read more...

Looks like the John Mack era might prove to be a very good one. It has moved into the top spot in the equity capital ranking and into the no. 2 spot in mergers and acquisitions, behind only Goldman... Read more...

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the many investment banks on the hook for First Data financing have still not finalized terms for the sale of about $14 billion in loans. Not sure what the exact kinks... Read more...

We noted recently that when it comes to financial sponsor-backed IPOs, the choice of underwriter seems to be Read more...

Interactive Brokers is going public in a Dutch auction via WR Hambrecht's OpenIPO process. This is the largest such offering since the Morningside deal. HSBC is also an underwriter. Read more...

Merrill Lynch has once again become something of a go-to player in high-yield bonds. About four years ago, it was languishing, not even ranking in the top ten. Since then, it has recommitted to... Read more...