Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have a vice-like grip on advising top technology companies. But after Uber and Lyft’s weak initial public offerings, rival banks are hoping for some market disruption.
“The quality of deal execution is being called into question more, by both corporates and VCs [venture capital firms],” said David Hermer, head of equity capital markets at Credit Suisse, noting that a “small number of banks have a disproportionate share of leadership roles in technology IPO”.
Prized as much for the reputational halo it offers as for the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in big mandates, the business of taking tech companies public has been highly concentrated since the 2000 dotcom crash, when many banks withdrew from the battered sector.