CHICAGO - Goldman, Sachs & Co. inched up to sixth place from ninth in the national senior manager rankings on health care deals last year, and the underwriter says that's largely due to a series of key hires and internal moves made in the second half of last year. Officials are hoping the strategy will help the firm to crack the top five this year.
"I think that these new hires did contribute to that [the jump in rankings] and there's a significant amount of momentum going into 2004," Susan Benz, a managing director and head of the national health care group at Goldman, said in an interview this week. "We look forward to further improving on that this year."
The firm took steps last year to either rebuild or add to existing staff in several key regional offices and at their New York City base. In Chicago, the firm lured veteran Midwest health care banker Jay Sterns away from Cain Brothers & Co. last fall.
In the case of Chicago, Sterns, a vice president, helped fill a void left when Ken Vallrugo and Joe Hegner quit in 2002 to join Merrill Lynch & Co. Sterns is working with Mark Florian, the head of the Chicago office, who works in both the general municipal and health care sectors. Robert Collins, vice president, and David Utz, a junior banker, also work in the health care group in Chicago.
Sterns spent the last five years at Cain. He previously worked for B.C. Ziegler & Co., where he spent 10 years, and prior to that he worked for Nuveen & Co. Sterns said he parted company with Cain on good terms.
"I had been splitting my time between financial advisory work and capital markets and I wanted to spend more time doing capital markets," he said. "It fit what I wanted to do on a personal level."
Goldman sought to strengthen its Houston office last summer by hiring as a vice president Kerry Rudy, who most recently worked briefly at Morgan Keegan & Co.
He had previously worked at Lehman Brothers for 14 years, but left there to work in an Internet-based business outside of public finance before going to Morgan last year.
In San Francisco, Goldman hired Abby Franklin, a vice president, from Morgan Stanley last fall. The firm also transferred E. Bradley Spielman, a vice president, from its New York office to San Francisco.
"We looked at the importance of having a strong regional presence in addition to our core health care people in New York," said Benz, who has led the health care group for the last seven years of her 23-year career at Goldman Sachs.
"I think it's really important to have bankers on the ground close to the client who understand the local issues and are able to provide local support, both in terms of understanding the market," she said.
In the New York office last summer, the firm hired Patrick McCarthy from Morgan Stanley, where he had worked since 1998, and internally transferred Ellen Gordon to the health care group. The New York office last spring had lost James L. Andrews Jr. to the bond insurer Financial Security Assurance Inc.
Benz said she anticipates adding to the group in New York and will keep an eye out for "selective opportunities" to strengthen the regional offices.
Goldman senior managed 18 health care deals worth $1.7 billion last year and captured 6% of the market share. In the Far West, the firm ranked ninth last year, the same as in 2002, and in the Midwest it ranked sixth, up from seventh in 2002.
In the Northeast it made its strongest showing in 2003, finishing in third place, the same as in 2002. In the Southeast it ranked 10th last year, up from 13th in 2002. It was unranked in the Southwest, according to Thomson Financial.
