Thom Weisel
| Thomas "Thom" Weisel | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 1941 Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Alma mater |
Stanford University (1963) Harvard Business School (1966) |
| Occupation | Founder of Montgomery Securities and Thomas Weisel Partners |
| Years active | 1966 - present |
| Employer |
Robertson, Coleman, Siebel & Weisel Montgomery Securities Thomas Weisel Partners |
| Known for | Financier for high tech companies in Silicon Valley |
Thomas "Thom" Weisel (born February 1941) is an American banker, businessman, and investor. He was one of the pioneers in the development of the high tech industry in Silicon Valley. Weisel is the founder of Montgomery Securities and later Thomas Weisel Partners.
Weisel was born in February 1941 at the Mayo Clinic, son of Wilson Weisel a prominent surgeon and Betty Amos Weisel. Weisel was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in economics in 1963. Weisel was a champion speed skater as a teenager and won five national age-group championships at speed skating, and came third at Olympic trials in 1959.
In 1966, Weisel received an MBA from Harvard Business School. He began his career as a research analyst working for William Hutchinson on the West Coast.
In 1971, Weisel co-founded Robertson, Coleman, Siebel & Weisel (the firm had begun with three partners in 1969). In 1978 Weisel became chief executive of the firm and prompted the departure of his co-founders Sandy Robertson and Robert Colman. Weisel changed the name of the firm to Montgomery Securities. Robertson left the firm in October 1978 and founded Robertson, Colman, Stephens & Woodman, the predecessor of the investment banking firm Robertson Stephens.
Montgomery Securities was behind numerous initial public offerings during the rise of tech stocks in the 1980s and 90s, including AMGen in 1983, Micron Technologies in 1984, and Yahoo! Inc. in 1996. The firm was one of four investment banks that, as a group, were referred to as the “Four Horsemen,” due to their prominence in the underwriting of the IPOs of many of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley at the time. From 1989-96, Montgomery Securities raised $57.3 billion in equity and underwrote 293 IPOs.
In 1997, Weisel spearheaded a $1.3 billion acquisition of Montgomery Securities by NationsBank. The following year, however, NationsBank acquired BankAmerica Corp. The newly combined investment banking units later became known as Banc of America Securities.
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