Head of investment banking, DC Lee, talks about a year of phenomenal growth for Core-Pacific Yamaichi.
Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Core Pacific-Yamaichi
The holding company was previously called Core Pacific Securities and came from Taiwan. In 1997 some foreign investment banks said they wanted to sell their Asia business, especially the Hong Kong part. We chose to buy Yamaichi's operation for many reasons. It was a financially strong operation in Hong Kong. The firm had a 26 year history in Hong Kong, and had very good client relationships. The acquisition price was $90 million, but $81 million of that was cash, so really we only paid $9 million....
