NationsBankAmerica Merger Also Brings Together Montgomery Securities and Robertson Stephens

(April 14, 1998)  The mega merger between NationsBank and BankAmerica announced on April 13 will also bring together two leading San Francisco investment banking firms which specialize in high technology companies: Montgomery Securities and Robertson Stephens & Co.  The two wholly owned subsidiaries currently are competitors.

NationsBanc Montgomery Securities LLC is a wholly owned and separately capitalized subsidiary of of NationsBank Corporation (ticker NB).  BancAmerica Robertson Stephens (BARS) is a wholly owned subsidiary of BankAmerica Corporation (ticker BAC).

BARS is an international investment banking and investment management firm specializing in growth companies. Its primary clients are companies for which the firm offers investment banking services and institutional investors for whom it provides investment recommendations and trade execution. The company has approximately $4.2 billion under management-public mutual funds and private partnerships.  It has been involved in financing Pixar, Ascend, and America Online.  It has taken many high tech companies public, including Exodus Communications.

It also hosts an annual conference for technology analysts.  BARS Chairman of the Board Sandy Robertson introduced Bill Clinton at the Technology 98 conference, where the President endorsed the Internet Tax Freedom Act on February 24.

NationsBanc Montgomery Securities LLC provides a broad range of financial products and services for corporations and institutions worldwide. Through its expertise in securities origination, trading and distribution, it offers public and private fixed-income debt finance, cross-border finance, asset-backed securities, loan syndications, derivatives products and foreign exchange, real estate finance, mortgage finance and mergers and acquisitions advisory services.  It has been involved in underwriting many high technology companies, including Cyrix Corp., E*Trade Group Inc., LSI Logic Corp., Nextel Communications, PSINet, Silicon Valley Group, Silicon Gaming, and Yahoo!.

The merger must be approved by federal and state antitrust and bank regulators.   One concern will be whether the merger would harm competition for retail banking services in any areas.  However, since Bank of America primarily does business in Western states, and NationsBank primarily does business in the Southeast, regulators are not likely to find any significant antitrust problems.  Moreover, overlap in markets can be rectified by divestment of some facilities in those markets.

Sources: BankAmerica, NationsBank, Montgomery Securities, and Robertson Stephens websites.