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Robert Lessin can claim credit for launching the financial buyers coverage at Morgan, Stanley & Co. back in 1983, but he can't claim it arose from brilliant planning on his part. On the contrary, he recalls,"it became a business only out of sheer necessity-I had to eat!"
Lessin, who many bankers point to as the godfather of Wall Street's financial entrepreneur groups, is now vice chairman of Smith Barney and a senior adviser to chief executive Jamie Dimon. In an interview, he recalls how it all began:
In 1983, Lessin, who had been in London running the European mergers and acquisitions group at Morgan Stanley, was tapped by the firm to bolster a "transactions development group" in New York.
The purpose of this new unit was to foster M&A activity. But upon arriving in the States, Lessin found he had no corporate client base to speak of and no real sense of mission. Who...