FleetBoston Financial to Close Its Robertson Stephens Investment Banking Unit.

Byline: Chris Gaither

Jul. 15--SAN FRANCISCO--In the end, the last of the Four Horsemen fell abruptly.

Robertson Stephens, the investment banking subsidiary of FleetBoston Financial Corp., was a member of the quartet of West Coast boutiques known by that name. They financed technology and health-care ventures that were often passed over by the more established banks.

But when the Four Horsemen -- Robertson Stephens, Alex. Brown, Hambrecht & Quist, and Montgomery Securities -- were swept into the fold of larger banks through acquisitions, their bravado and swagger clashed with the top-down management styles of their parent companies.

On Friday, Robertson Stephens succumbed to Fleet's impatience for the volatility of high-tech financing, which has nearly dried up since the Internet bubble burst. Fleet announced it would shutter the investment bank and lay off its 950 employees after negotiations to sell the remnants to a group of Robertson Stephens managing directors failed to reach a deal in time for Fleet to report its second-quarter earnings today.

Shortly after lunchtime, Robertson Stephens chief executive John Conlin gathered his employees on the investment bank's trading floor. With tears in his eyes, he announced that talks had failed.

"This is not a company that had to be shut down," Conlin said, according to an account by the San Francisco Chronicle and confirmed by a person who was there. "It is a company whose owner decided to sell at a time when the investment banking industry was confronting unprecedented challenges, immense economic uncertainty, and the erosion of investor confidence."