Michael Grimes (investment banker)
Michael David Grimes | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 25, 1966 |
| Occupation(s) | Investment banker, senior leadership official at United States Department of Commerce |
| Known for | Managing Director and Co-Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley; senior leadership position in United States Department of Commerce |
Michael David Grimes (born November 25, 1966) holds a senior leadership position within the United States Department of Commerce. His previous roles include Managing Director and Co-Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley.
Early life and education
Grimes completed his secondary education at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California, before earning degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. During his academic years, he gained practical experience through internships as a communications systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company in 1985 and as an information systems engineer at Pacific Bell in 1986. Additionally, he contributed as a software programmer and consultant at Grimes Surveying & Mapping Inc., a company owned by his father.
Career
Upon graduating in 1987, Grimes began his career in technology investment banking at Salomon Brothers, now integrated into Citigroup. By 1992, he advanced to Vice President at Bear Stearns, specializing in technology banking. In 1995, Frank Quattrone recruited him to Morgan Stanley’s Menlo Park branch as Vice President with a focus on technology investment banking. Following Quattrone's departure to Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in 1996, Grimes stayed at Morgan Stanley, collaborating with Cordell Spencer and Dhiren Shah to revitalize the West Coast Technology Investment Banking division. In 2005, he and Paul Chamberlain were elevated to Co-Heads of Global Technology Banking.
Grimes has participated in numerous technology investment banking deals exceeding $100 billion in total value, encompassing significant IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and financing transactions. Among his notable contributions are the $16 billion IPO of Facebook and the $1.9 billion auction-style IPO of Google. His merger and acquisition expertise includes Seagate Technology’s $20.5 billion three-way merger and spinoff involving Veritas Software, Silver Lake Partners, and Texas Pacific Group; the $13.6 billion split of Hewlett-Packard into HP and Agilent, which became Silicon Valley’s largest IPO at that time; as well as Oracle’s $5.8 billion purchase of Siebel Systems.
United States Department of Commerce
During the second term of president Donald Trump, Grimes served within the United States Department of Commerce.
Reports indicate that he requested federal personnel at the CHIPS Program Office to submit IQ or SAT scores as a measure of their intellectual capabilities and posed challenging mathematical problems to them.
Recognition
Grimes first appeared on the Forbes Midas List in 2002, ranking as the second highest investment banker and eighteenth overall. He held the top spot among investment bankers from 2004 through 2007 and was ranked second in 2008. In July 2010, he was included in Fortune’s "50 Smartest People In Tech."
His accolades also include listings on AlwaysOn’s “Power List” of influential technology dealmakers, Institutional Investor’s 2006 “40 under 40” recognizing impactful investment bankers on Wall Street, the New York Times’ designation as “Facebook of Wall Street’s future,” and Dealmaker magazine’s “Top 50 Rainmakers.”