It was a busy month for Lazard senior partner Michel David-Weill.
By Hall Lux, with Jenny Anderson, Rich Blake, Lucy Conger, Justin Dini, Kevin Hamlin, Jeffrey Kutler and Justin Schack
December 2000
Institutional Investor Magazine
First, he named Lazard veteran William Loomis as the bank’s first American CEO. Then he helped quell an investor revolt against the bank’s complex shareholder structure by brokering the sale of an unfriendly stake in Lazard holding company Rue Impériale de Lyon , held by French financier Vincent Bolloré , to his ally Crédit Agricole. Finally, he recruited John Kornblum, U.S. ambassador to Germany, to head the firm,s operations in that country. With Lazard having dropped in global M&A rankings and status owing to the defection of top deal makers in recent years, no one thinks that David-Weill’s work is done. One option, apparently off the table for now, is the sale of Lazard. “We have an enormous opportunity, in part because our competition is
either dispersed in boutiques or compounded into bureaucracies,” Loomis wrote in a November 15 letter to employees. “We are the independent and private alternative. It will remain so. We are not going to sell the firm, take it public or sell a major business
