A week later the red herrings, the preliminary offering books, were ready after a forty-eight-hour marathon involving bankers, accountants, and lawyers at the printer’s offices. (For this reason financial printers’ offices, usually in lower Manhattan, are like well-appointed hotels, complete with large-screen TV, billiards, Ping-Pong, showers, twenty-four-hour hot and cold buffet—anything you could want, even complimentary cosmetic and personal hygiene kits. No one should go through life without spending at least one night there.)

As a routine gesture, our lawyer called Cowen, Montgomery, and First Albany to tell them the books were going into circulation. No! Wait! came the reply from Montgomery. There’s a problem here. The analyst just quit. We can’t do this deal without an analyst. We need some time to figure out what we’re doing. We’ll pay to reprint the books in the meantime.

Would Cowen quit now? Joe said, “Print the books with just two names on the cover for now.” They’d add back Montgomery’s name on the final S1 book, the final offering to go out next month after they got their analyst, which Tom had assured him would be done quickly.

Three weeks later, more bad news came. Montgomery had gotten an analyst. A well-known one. One they had hired from another firm. From Alex Brown, in fact.

“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, “Not that one. Not the one I almost threw out of the office.”

“Yes,” they replied, “that one. And guess what? He still hates your firm. Sorry.”

When Cowen heard Montgomery was really out, they held everything up. “It’s not good to go out with just one firm doing research,” they said, completely ignoring First Albany. “We’ve got to bring someone else in, in the next two weeks. If not, we’ll do it on our own, but it won’t be best for you.”

Oh, great, I thought. They’ll never do it. I knew it. They’re outa here. We’re dead. How are we gonna get a big-name firm to do this in two weeks when it took Cowen and Montgomery six months to get up to speed? Still, we had no choice but to try.

There were only two possibilities (Vocal Tec had ruled out H&Q): DLJ or Dean Witter. Both these firms were giants, both had experience in our industry, and both had been making overtures to us. Cowen preferred DLJ. They became our number one priority. All the senior management at the firm was summoned, and they all showed up to meet us, either in person or via teleconference, at a hastily called meeting at Skadden.