LA Times: Wall St. on Edge Over Probe of IPO Practices

“Two senior officers in Credit Suisse First Boston’s Silicon
Valley office have been placed on administrative leave, sources
said, deepening concerns on Wall Street over a federal probe into
sales practices involving initial public offerings.”

“The two men, John Schmidt and Michael Grunwald, were brokers
who worked with tech executives and other clients of Frank
Quattrone, the powerful CSFB lead investment banker for technology.
‘If there is guilt here, it’s going to blow up a lot of people,’
said one Wall Street insider.”

“The federal probe is looking into business arrangements on Wall
Street related to stock IPOs of recent years–specifically, whether
some investors who were allocated shares in hot IPO deals also paid
large commissions to the underwriting firms on other
transactions….”

“Dozens of Silicon Valley firms used the investment bank,
including AvantGo Inc., OmniSky Corp., Evolve Software Inc.,
Handspring Inc., Iprint Inc., Onvia.com Inc. and VA Linux Systems
Inc.”

Complete
Story