NATION

Three senior executives at investment firm Kidder, Peabody & Co. have announced that they will leave the brokerage house to begin their own firm, Vector Securities International Inc., which will specialize in the health-care and life sciences industries.

The three are: D. Theodore Berghorst, former managing director and co-director of Kidder Peabody’s corporate finance group in Chicago; James Foght, former senior vice president, and Peter Drake, former vice president and head of the health-care research group. They also said they would be joined by four other Kidder Peabody employees.

Berghorst will serve as Vector’s chairman and chief executive, Foght will be president, and Drake will serve as executive vice president and head of equity research, they said.