Robertson Stephens

"We walked the Robertson Stephens team through the details of Pixar’s vision, business plan, and risks. We told them we were aiming to change entertainment history in a way few companies had ever had a chance to do, and we described the four pillars it would take to make it work: raise the money to finance our films, expand the studio to handle more productions, make Pixar a worldwide brand, and increase our share of film profits. But there were risks. Big ones. Wall Street would have to understand that. “Thank you,” Brian said sincerely. “This has been immensely helpful. Give us a couple of days. We’ll be back to you.” Later that day I received a call from Todd Carter. He thanked me for the meeting and wanted to explain the process by which they would make their decision. “The decision is made by our Commitment Committee,” he said. “That comprises all our top people and they make the final decision on every deal.” “Any idea how it looks for Pixar?” I asked him. “I wish I could say,” Todd replied. “You’re very aware of the challenges in Pixar’s business model. We’re excited about Pixar, we love the vision, but we have to be certain our investors can tolerate the risks. My personal recommendation is that we go for it, but it isn’t my decision. I think it’ll be close.” There wasn’t much there to make me feel comfortable. I could only sit and wait. It was hard to be patient, though. I hadn’t expressed it to Todd, but by this point I was flat out of options. If Robertson Stephens’s committee voted thumbs down, our chances of an IPO anytime in the near future would truly evaporate. Two days later Brian Bean called. “Our Commitment Committee made its decision,” he started. I held my breath. “We’re in,” Brian told me. “We think our investors will go for this. We know we have to get them on board for the long term, but there’s enough that’s exciting here that we think they will. We’d be honored to be the lead banker for Pixar’s IPO.” I put down the phone with a lump in my throat. Lightning had struck. This was huge. My first call was to Steve."

"Then, in the afternoon, I received a call from Rory O'Sullivan, head of Robertson Stephens’s internet division in Europe. He must have received his copy of the memorandum, I thought. In the past few days he had been so friendly and helpful that in my buoyant mood I half imagined that he had rung up to congratulate us. But now his voice was sombre. ‘Hi, Ernst,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we've got some bad news.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘We've decided that we’re not prepared to go ahead. We feel very uncomfortable about the idea of an IPO in the second quarter. It’s too early.’ In my brief tenure as CEO of boo.com there had been many shocks, but this one was off the scale. “What’s the problem?’ I asked. ‘Basically, our retail analyst, Lauren Cooks Levitan, doesn’t think institutional investors will go for it yet,’ O’Sullivan said. ‘She thinks you need more revenue momentum. There has to be strong evidence that your sales are growing at a steady rate and that the business model is actually working.’ Cooks Levitan also felt that before proceeding with a pre-IPO round, we needed to sign some more big suppliers and Dean Hawkins, who was due to begin as our new CFO at the beginning of February, needed to be fully integrated into the business for at least a couple of months. ‘We're really sorry,’ said O’Sullivan, “but this process is analyst-led and we can’t move forward if she doesn’t support it.’ ‘Look, we’ve got to talk to her,’ I said, still having trouble believing what I was hearing. ‘Can’t you set up a meeting? She hasn’t even spoken to us yet.’ ‘Sure. I can do that, but I don’t think it will make a lot of difference.’"