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Joe Montana
Image:profootballhof.com |
If you were to ask what
Joe Montana,
Ronnie Lott, and
Harris Barton have in common, most Bay Area residents and pro football fans would say "San Francisco 49ers." And that would be a correct answer, but not the only answer. The NFL trio also founded a tech investment firm called HRJ Capital during the go-go days of the initial Internet stock boom. (We are experiencing the second, equally feverish Internet IPO wave now.)
According to the interesting reporter Peter Delevett's story in siliconvalley.com, Joe Cool and his pals at their zenith managed two billion dollars in assets. However, when the Internet gold turned to dust, HRJ Capital encountered severe financial issues. Given that two of HRJ's clients were Barry Bonds and Peyton Manning, the firm's fiscal crisis must have generated some interesting conversations (particularly with the notoriously surly Bonds).
In 2009, Lott, Harris, et al., sold the business to a Swiss enterprise called
Capital Dynamics. (Montana had jumped ship in 2005.)
Apparently, the yodelers did not perform sufficient due diligence. The Swiss ended up on the wrong end of expensive litigation. Recently, the opposing sides reached a settlement that cost the European mountain men a mere nine million dollars. As was often the case during the 49ers run to glory, Montana and his two teammates were not penalized, not even for holding.
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