Frank Quattrone (born 1955) is an American technology

investment banker Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with ...

who started technology sector franchises at

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

, and

Credit Suisse First Boston Credit Suisse First Boston (also known as CSFB and CS First Boston) is the investment banking affiliate of Credit Suisse headquartered in New York. The company was created by the merger of First Boston, First Boston Corporation and Credit Suisse, ...

. He helped bring dozens of technology companies public during the 1990s tech boom, including

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

, and

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

. Later, he was prosecuted for interfering with a government probe into

's behavior in allocating "hot"

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

s. The case was eventually dropped. He was earning roughly $120 million a year during his peak at the firm. Quattrone is now head of

investment banking Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...

firm Qatalyst Group, which he founded in March 2008.

Life and career

Quattrone grew up in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and attended St. Joseph's Preparatory School on an academic scholarship. He was admitted to the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a Private university, private Ivy League rese ...

and graduated with honors. Following business school at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, he began work at Morgan Stanley's technology investment banking group. 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. The first trial resulted in a

hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. Hung jury usually results in the case being tried again. ...

. The second trial resulted in a conviction. On appeal the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York (state), New York and Vermont. The court h ...

reversed Quattrone's conviction, ruling, based in part upon the Supreme Court case Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States that Quattrone's jury had been given erroneous jury instructions. 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 A deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), which is very similar to a non-prosecution agreement (NPA), is a voluntary alternative to adjudication in which a prosecutor agrees to grant amnesty in exchange for the defendant agreeing to fulfill certain ...

, which allowed him to avoid prison time, "leading legal observers to label the agreement an exoneration." The National Association of Securities Dealers also dropped their charges. It was stated that he "plan to resume isbusiness career." 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) based at

Santa Clara University School of Law The Santa Clara University School of Law (Santa Clara Law) is the law school of Santa Clara University, a Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States, in the Silicon Valley region. The School of Law was founded in 1911. The Jesuit ...

. 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

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. 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 Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

. 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 Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

, 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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quattrone, Frank 1955 births Living people American financial analysts St. Joseph's Preparatory School alumni Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Credit Suisse people Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area American investment bankers Morgan Stanley employees Businesspeople from Philadelphia 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American people of Italian descent