Other leading overseas financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Salomon Smith Barney and Robertson Stephens, have been active here for several years. Other investment banks such as Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan are also expected to establish a local presence soon.
Levy described the new relationship as “mutually beneficial. We have a hold in the Israeli market. They have a foot in the foreign markets.”
No physical office will be set up by DLJ; instead it will use Poalim’s existing infrastructure.
DLJ, a firm based in New York City, has 14 offices in the United States and 11 international offices. The company, with 8,150 employees worldwide, was founded in 1959 and went public in 1970.
DLJ’s Banking Group offers investment banking, merchant banking, and management and underwriting for new security issues. Its Capital Markets Group provides research, securities trading and sales services to institutional clients.
Poalim is the investment banking arm of the Bank Hapoalim group.
Poalim’s services include underwriting public offers, private placements, merchant banking, mergers and acquisitions, corporate valuations, project finance, venture capital funds, assets management, research and financial engineering.