Robertson Stephens
| Industry | Financial Services |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1971 |
| Founder | Sandy Robertson, Robert Coleman and Ken Siebel |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
Robertson Stephens was a San Francisco-based boutique investment bank that focused primarily on technology companies. The firm was closed by its parent company, FleetBoston in July 2002 as a result of the collapse of the technology sector and the end of the dot-com bubble.
Robertson Stephens was among the most active investment banks in the technology sector at the height of the internet boom, underwriting 74 IPOs with a total value of $5.5 billion between 1999 and 2000. Robertson was the lead underwriter of some of the most prominent firms of the 1990s stock boom, including Switchboard, Mapquest, E-Trade and Vericity, as well as retailer Bebe. Robertson had approximately 950 employees at the time it was shuttered by FleetBoston.
In February 2013, about 10 years after closing its doors, Robertson Stephens reopened as a wealth advisory firm providing institutional-level investment management services to individual clients.
The firm's earliest predecessor, Robertson, Colman & Siebel was founded in 1969 by Sandy Robertson, Robert Colman and Ken Siebel. In 1971, Thomas Weisel, who would later found Montgomery Securities and Thomas Weisel Partners, joined the firm, which was renamed Robertson, Colman, Siebel & Weisel.
In 1978, Thom Weisel, the junior partner pulled off what was described later as a "mutiny" of the firm. Weisel became chief executive of the firm and prompted the departure of Robertson and Colman. Weisel changed the name of the original firm to Montgomery Securities.
Robertson left the firm in October 1978 and founded Robertson, Colman, Stephens & Woodman along with partners Robert Colman and Dean Woodman and many of the firm's leading bankers. The name of the firm was shorted to Robertson Stephens & Company in 1989. Robertson Stephens and Montgomery Securities would remain fierce rivals for two decades.
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