Press Releases
ThinkEquity LLC Expands Technology Practice by Adding Three Veteran Bankers
San Francisco — May 22, 2007 — ThinkEquity LLC (London-AIM: PMR), a leading global growth investment bank, today announced the addition of three new bankers to support the firm's commitment to serve the investment banking needs of technology growth companies.
The new members of the ThinkEquity Partners technology banking team are Joe Dews, who is joining the firm as a Partner to head up banking for Semiconductors and related industries; Robin Graham, who will be a Partner in the mergers and acquisitions practice; and Pooyan Mehdizadeh, who will be a Principal in the mergers and acquisitions practice.
The three bankers were formerly with Needham & Company, LLC.
"We are seeing an uptick in the demands of technology companies in the market today, and are always pushing to address these needs. We aim to be the number one growth investment bank in technology and healthcare and believe these new additions will get us one step further to reaching our business goal. We are poised to capitalize on the momentum we are experiencing and to leverage our success since the Panmure Gordon merger," said Michael Moe, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of ThinkEquity.
Deborah Quazzo, Co-founder, President, and Head of Investment Banking said, "We aggressively targeted these top tier technology / semiconductor and M&A bankers. Their experience and relationships will be invaluable to helping ThinkEquity execute successful M&A transactions and financing deals for our clients."
Team Background
Dews brings to ThinkEquity more than 18 years experience in technology investment banking and the technology industry. He began his career in technology investment banking with Needham & Company in 1988, and later rejoined Needham in 2001. At Needham, Dews led the firm's Semiconductor investment banking efforts globally. His other investment banking experience includes roles as a Managing Director at CIBC World Markets/Oppenheimer & Co., where he headed the Electronics Group, and as a Managing Director at Dain Rauscher Wessels, where he headed the Semiconductor and Technical Software Groups.
Dews' investment banking transaction experience includes venture investments, private placements, IPOs, follow-on equity offerings, convertible debt offerings, and mergers and acquisitions. He has completed transactions for clients located in the US as well as in Canada, China, Germany, Korea, Taiwan and the UK. In addition to his banking experience, Dews brings industry knowledge from stints as a Field Applications Engineer at Cirrus Logic K.K. in Tokyo, and as Vice President of Business Development at Versata, Inc. Dews is a graduate of Cornell University with a B.S. in Applied & Engineering Physics.
Graham joins ThinkEquity with 13 years of growth company investment banking experience at Needham & Company. He began his career on Wall Street and later transferred to Silicon Valley to co-found and build Needham's M&A Group. He is the co-author of "Equity Carve-outs and Spin-offs of Technology Operations," published in The Financier in November 1995, and subsequently executed such transactions for DuPont, Palm and TRW.
Over the past decade Graham has successfully advised on a broad range of M&A transactions for clients including Alliance Semiconductor, Atmel, Bell Microproducts, Ceradyne, Microsemi and Maxtor. Graham completed graduate finance and accounting studies at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management while he earned an A.B. from Harvard University.
Mehdizadeh joins ThinkEquity with seven years of technology investment banking experience, most recently as a Vice President in Needham & Company's M&A group. He has successfully completed over 45 transactions for both public and private technology companies across the full spectrum of advisory assignments, including acquisitions, exclusives sales, divestitures, spin-offs, take-over defense assignments and cross-border transactions. Earlier in his career, Mehdizadeh was a Consultant at Accenture Ltd. Mehdizadeh received a B.S. in Information and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Irvine.
About ThinkEquity
ThinkEquity is a research-centric institutional investment firm focused on the growth economy. ThinkEquity merger with Panmure Gordon in March 2007 provides its clients with global investment banking services. The firm is dedicated to providing focused insight, advisory services, and capital to institutional investors and corporate constituents in the knowledge economy's key growth verticals, including technology, healthcare, media/education and consumer/business services. For more information about ThinkEquity, please visit www.thinkequity.com. Member FINRA and SIPC.
For more information please contact:
Peter Coleman
Chief Operating Officer
ThinkEquity
415-249-2900
or
Jennifer Jones
650-529-1416
jennifer@jenniferjones.com