The Valley Pushes for Diversity … on the Street

On the prospectus for $7 billion of Intel bonds issued in July 2015, the top billing was unsurprising: the banking powerhouses Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Then, in small print, came two lesser-known underwriting firms: Lebenthal & Co. and Williams Capital Group. Not exactly titans of Wall Street. So what were they doing there?

The answer has something to do with the push for diversity in Silicon Valley. U.S. technology companies are making a point of giving a piece of the underwriting action—long dominated by mostly male, mostly white companies—to firms owned by women and minorities. The name Lebenthal, for years synonymous with municipal bonds, disappeared from Wall Street more than a decade ago. Then Alexandra Lebenthal, the family scion, reconstituted the 90-year-old business and positioned it as a top women-owned underwriter. Christopher Williams, a former Lehman Brothers and Jefferies Group investment banker, founded Williams Capital in 1994 and built it into one of the largest minority-owned underwriters.