Head of Pacific Exchange to Resign, Join Law Firm

Charles E. Rickershauser Jr. said Thursday that he is resigning as chairman and chief executive of the Pacific Stock Exchange because he wants to return to the practice of law.

He said he will become a partner in the New York- and Washington-based law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson and will open a West Coast office in Los Angeles.

“It’s a fabulous opportunity,” he said of the offer from Fried, Frank. “I couldn’t pass it up.”

Rickershauser’s resignation, which takes effect March 31, will end his six-year tenure as the exchange’s first full-time chairman and will come just three months after the scheduled opening of the exchange’s new Los Angeles trading floor in downtown’s Beaudry Center just west of the Harbor Freeway.

Rickershauser, 57, said in a telephone interview that he has accomplished “the things I had hoped for when I joined the exchange.” In addition to the Los Angeles trading floor, he said, those achievements include opening a new options trading floor in San Francisco in 1984 and expanding by 50% the San Francisco trading floor.

A spokesman for the exchange said that a successor is expected to be named by the time Rickershauser steps down. Heading the committee to pick a replacement are Herbert G. Kawahara, vice chairman of the exchange and executive vice president of E. F. Hutton, and Douglas J. Engmann, vice chairman-elect of the exchange and an options trader in San Francisco.

Before joining the exchange, Rickershauser was a partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles, Rickershauser. He served as commissioner of corporations for the state of California in 1964 and 1965 and as a special adviser to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s corporation finance division in 1963. He graduated from UCLA Law School in 1957, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review, and he clerked for Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

In a statement announcing Rickershauser’s appointment, Fried, Frank described itself Thursday as a firm that specializes in “complex financial transactions.” It said it has more than 270 attorneys and has been actively involved in mergers, acquisitions and restructurings.

In the last quarter of 1985, it represented General Electric in its purchase of RCA, Philip Morris in its merger with General Foods, Procter & Gamble in its acquisition of Richardson-Vicks, and Burlington Northern in its successful bid for Southland Royalty.