Green Manning & Bunch, once considered the go-to investment bank for mergers and acquisitions in the Rocky Mountain region, will make its last closing on Tuesday — those of its own doors.
“We all concluded it had run its course,” said Alan Mayer, one of three managing directors at the firm, which started in 1988 and has been a subsidiary of CoBiz Financial since 2001.
Mayer and the two other managing partners, Warren Henson and Greg Anderson, are plotting their next moves, while nine other staff members have found work within CoBiz or at other firms.
“It came down to a decision to focus on our recurring revenues sources,” CoBiz spokeswoman Sue Hermann said.
While other business lines at the bank generated a steady income stream, Green Manning’s revenues fluctuated based on its flow of deals, Hermann said. Also, the regulatory burden had become much heavier and costly with each passing year.
CoBiz, in theory, could have sold the firm or spun it off, but the managing partners were ready to move on. Mayer joked that at an investment bank, “the assets wear tennis shoes.”
In recent years, national players started to more aggressively pursue the middle-sized firms that Green Manning courted as clients. And while the firm had a strong year in 2014, longer-term the outlook was less certain, he said.
“It was getting hard to compete with national firms with very deep industry expertise,” said Mayer.
Green Manning was faced with two paths — either invest heavily and grow large enough to challenge national rivals or narrow its focus and become the expert in industry niches.
Neither scenario seemed workable for the firm, whose bigger deals over the years included the sale of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Colorado to Anthem and several acquisitions by PSL Healthcare Systems.
Green Manning also helped arrange the sale of Mattress King and Bedmart to Mattress Firm Holding Co. and last week finished the sale of Falcon Industries, a metal sign maker.
“It is haunting that Green Manning & Bunch, one of the region’s dominant firms, is no longer with us,” said Wayne Nielsen, president of W.G. Nielsen & Co. in Cherry Creek.
Green Manning was a good competitor and operated with integrity, Nielsen said. But it remained a generalist in a world where clients were demanding specialization.
Nielsen said his firm has developed deep expertise in specific niches, such as auto dealerships, and within telecom and healthcare.
Boettcher & Co. veterans Jack Green, Bob Manning and Jim Bunch started the firm back in 1988, parlaying their extensive contacts and industry knowledge into a dominant position before selling the firm to CoBiz in 2001.
Joseph Durnford, owner of JD Ford & Associates, said he isn’t happy to see such a prominent rival close, which just highlights how thin Denver’s native investment banking community has become.
That said, the firm’s departure does open up opportunities to add clients who want to work with a local investment bank.
“We are picking up some of those relationships,” he said.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or
