Beacon Hires Former BankAmerica President
David Coulter, who quit as president of BankAmerica Corp. a year ago after the largest U.S. bank posted a surprise loss, was hired by the Beacon Group to run the private equity and merger firm’s West Coast business.
Coulter, 52, will work in Los Angeles for New York-based Beacon, according to a Sept. 17 memo to investors in the firm’s funds. The Beacon Group is focusing on developing relationships with the chief executives of mid-sized companies, the memo said.
Coulter spent 22 years at BankAmerica, once based in San Francisco, as head of international and U.S. corporate groups, among other positions, before becoming president in 1995.
He stepped down last October, a month after he’d seen the bank through a merger with NationsBank Corp. that created the first truly national retail bank. His resignation followed the bank’s disclosure of a $372-million loss from a loan to hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co., which contributed to a 50% drop in the new BankAmerica’s 1998 third-quarter earnings.
Coulter joins Beacon, founded earlier this decade by former Goldman, Sachs & Co. partner Geoffrey Boisi, just as the firm may be bought. It’s held talks with Schroders & Co., the largest independent British merchant bank, according to Investment Dealers’ Digest. Schroders has been looking to boost business in its U.S. investment banking unit, which lost its chairman in May.
Beacon has funds that specialize in investing in natural resource companies. Its advisory business--built around its acquisition a few years ago of the Bridgeford Group--focuses on restructuring, divestitures and mergers.
A Beacon Group official was not immediately available for comment.
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