Thus The Circle Remains Unbroken

It seems that Frank Quattrone will receive a “happy landing” after all, based on this New York Times story…

The news came about seven months after a federal judge approved a request by prosecutors to dismiss all remaining charges against Mr. Quattrone, formally clearing the way for his return to Wall Street.

“The opera is over,” he said at the time, referring to the travails of his conviction — later reversed — on charges of hindering a government investigation into initial public offerings at Credit Suisse.

Quattrone will be the chief executive for The Qatalyst Group, a technology-focused merchant banking group based in San Francisco, according to the story in the Times. He “will offer merger and acquisitions advice through its investment banking arm, and would make principal investments alongside venture capital and private equity firms though (Qatalyst’s) investment arm.”

And as the story also tells us, everything is just peachy with Frank and his pals…

Silicon Valley seems to be welcoming him back into business with open arms. The Qatalyst press release featured quotes from prominent Silicon Valley executives, including Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, and Jim Breyer of the venture firm Accel Partners, discussing expectations of becoming clients of the new firm.

“I look forward to working with him again and am very enthusiastic about Qatalyst’s prospects for success,” Mr. Schmidt said. (Mr. Quattrone was one of the first bankers to ever meet with Google.)

And Frank has even managed to work his golf handicap down to an “8.4 index” (sorry, but I really don’t “chase the little white ball” much - made it to a driving range, but that's about it - so I can’t tell you what that means), though rest assured that he’s hitting the books in preparation for tests he must take to renew his securities industry licenses since he hasn’t worked in the business for more than two years (oh, and he also worked on the Innocence Project, which “helps appeal unjust convictions”).

That’s commendable, but is there anyone else out there besides me who needs a bit of a refresher as to how Quattrone ended up outside of the securities industry for “more than two years” (and of course, it would have been impolite of the Times to remind everyone of this, I realize)?

Well then, please allow me to link back to this post, which notes that the man who seeded a whole host of ‘90s “dot.coms” through Credit Suisse was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney General’s office for obstruction of justice based on an Email he sent to colleagues telling them to “clean up files” concerning allegations that he gave some clients privileged access to technology shares in return for getting other business (and Quattrone's conviction was thrown out over instructions given to the jury).

And as I said in August of ’06, while it’s very likely that Quattrone essentially performed a “pump and dump” of some of his hot IPOs, this artificially inflated the tech “bubble,” and when it burst, many in the industry lost their jobs. So, though perhaps his illegality is now officially unproven (innocent by default, I guess), his actions weren't in accordance with what you would call “best practice” under any stretch of the imagination.

So cheer Frank Quattrone if you want and nurse the likely illusion that he somehow was redeemed by his legal ordeal over obstruction of justice charges. However, don’t be surprised if you hand over to him so much as a dime of your money and end up never seeing it again.