With a growing number of California's best-known investment banks now controlled by East Coast banks, the smaller Van Kasper & Co. hopes to capture more business here by carving out a reputation as one of the West's leading investment banks.
In September, San Francisco-based Van Kasper agreed to a $100-million purchase by First Security Corp., a bank holding company in Salt Lake City. The deal is on track to close in January.
Joining with the bank would give Van Kasper the extra capital it needs to expand into new areas such as municipal bond underwriting, larger private placements, trusts and fixed-income securities, said F. Van Kasper, 61, the company founder who is still chairman and chief executive.
After leaving Merrill Lynch & Co., Van Kasper started the firm in 1978 with six employees. It has grown to 250 employees in nine offices and offers investment banking and brokerage services while managing about $2.2 billion. Kasper recently served on the board of directors of the National Assn. of Securities Dealers Regulation.
"Everyone is so busy. The person who is trying to solve their financial problems, they don't want six or seven banking relationships," Kasper said. "Our clients were asking us to do more for them, so it made a lot of sense for us to find a partner to do more."
According to CommScan, an investment banking research firm in New York, Van Kasper has participated in 33 deals this year, mostly as part of a team. The firm was lead manager in five of the initial and secondary stock deals, totaling about $100 million, CommScan said. As of last week, those stocks were down an average of 14%, according to CommScan.
In one of its most recent and successful deals, Van Kasper was lead manager for a $9.1-million secondary offering from Javelin Systems Inc., an Irvine developer of touch-screen point-of-sale computers for the retail and food industry.
Javelin, which went public in 1996 at $5 a share, sold its shares Oct. 29 at $6.75. As of last week, the stock had risen about 60% from the secondary offering price.
"We got good service and we had good chemistry with Van Kasper," said Horrace Hertz, chief financial officer with Javelin. "It was a risky time, but we felt our story was good enough to attract investors."
But some in the industry question whether Van Kasper could ever become a major player in financing the growth of small and medium-sized companies.
