History
The firm was founded in 1962 by Harry Keefe Jr., Gene Bruyette and Norbert Woods. The three founders previously had worked together at Tucker, Anthony & R. L. Day. Beginning in the 1950s, Keefe had been one of the first Wall Street research analysts to focus on bank stocks, which later became the specialty of the firm he co-founded. Norbert Woods died in 1972 and the firm was led by Keefe and Bruyette through the 1970s and 1980s.
Under Harry Keefe, the firm advised on several mergers that helped form large regional banks in the 1980s. The firm advised on a series of deals that created the Bank of New England out of smaller banks in Massachusetts and Connecticut. KBW also advised on the creation of SunTrust Bank from a group of Florida and Georgia based banks. In 1985, KBW negotiated the merger of Wachovia and First National Bank of Atlanta. More recently, in 2005, the firm was sole adviser to Bank of America in their takeover of MBNA.
Harry Keefe left the firm in 1989 after a business dispute with his associates and founded his own money management and consulting firm. By 1990, KBW had transitioned management of the firm from the original founders to a new group including Charles Lott and James McDermott. Gene Bruyette retired from the firm in 1991. James McDermott was later convicted of violating insider trading rules in 2000 by providing stock tips to a girlfriend.
In November 2006, KBW completed a $100 million initial public offering of stock. The firm is traded on the NYSE under the ticker 'KBW'. As of the end of 2010, KBW employees owned approximately one-third of the stock in the company.
Read more about this topic: Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
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