Frank Quattrone - Qatalyst Group

Qatalyst Group

In March 2008, Quattrone founded Qatalyst Group, a high-end corporate advisory firm focused on technology. Almost immediately after the firm issued its founding press release, it was reported to be advising Google on the Yahoo takeover deal pending with Microsoft. The article reporting the collaboration said: "That Mr. Schmidt (CEO of Google Inc.) would call on Mr. Quattrone is no surprise. The two men have worked together for years, and Mr. Schmidt was even quoted in the press release announcing the creation of Qatalyst (Mr Quattrone's new consulting and investment banking venture) 'I look forward to working with him again and am very enthusiastic about Qatalyst’s prospects for success.'"

Qatalyst has since advised on some of the most high-profile assignments in the industry. It represented Data Domain on its sale to EMC, nearly doubling the firm's purchase price, and represented struggling mobile device maker Palm in its sale to Hewlett Packard.

The success of Data Domain sale was followed by the bidding war for 3Par, which concluded in Hewlett Packard paying more than double the 3Par's value on the public markets. Netezza (on its sale to IBM) and Isilon (on its sale to EMC) were another storage clients advised by Qatalyst in 2010.

The success of 2010 was overshadowed by Qatalyst's assignments in 2011. Qatalyst advised Riot Games on its sale to Tencent, Kosmix on its sale to Wal-Mart, Atheros on its sale to Qualcomm, Zong on its sale to eBay, PopCap on its sale to EA, National Semiconductor on its sale to Texas Instruments, Autonomy on its sale to Hewlett Packard, Motorola Mobility on its sale to Google, and Netlogic on its sale to Broadcom, among many others.