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It's another week, and another 25 banks have joined the Facebook's initial public offering party, bringing the grand total of financial backers to 31.
Whoa whoa whoa -- Why on Earth does Mark Zuckerberg and company need nearly three dozen banks to prepare its stock offering? First of all, keep in mind that this is also a brand-building exercise for Facebook, so it's chosen to stack its list with minority and women-owned banks. Second, it's a big IPO, and according to Dow Jones, "It's not unusual for 25 to 30 banks to work on large offerings such as Facebook's." So why not offer a long and diverse roster of players to choose from? Facebook's army of bankers looks like this:
The Original Six:
- Morgan Stanley
- JPMorgan Chase
- Goldman Sachs
- Bank of America
- Merrill Lynch
- Barclays Capital
- Allen & Co.
The Blithe Twenty-Five:
- Citigroup
- Credit Suisse Group
- Deutsche Bank
- RBC Capital Markets
- Wells Fargo
- Blaylock Robert Van
- BMO Capital Markets
- C.L. King & Associates
- Cabrera Capital Markets
- CastleOak Securities L.P.
- Cowen & Co.
- Lazard Capital Markets
- Lebenthal & Co.
- Loop Capital Markets
- M.R. Beal & Co.
- Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc.
- Muriel Siebert & Co.
- Oppenheimer & Co.
- Pacific Crest Securities
- Piper Jaffray & Co.
- Raymond James & Associates
- Samuel A. Ramirez & Co.
- Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.
- The Williams Capital Group
- William Blair & Co.
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