IPO reporter rates Beverly-Hills-based H.J. Meyers the top U.S. underwriter.

IPO Reporter rates Beverly Hills-based H.J. Meyers the top U.S. underwriter

Harold "Bud" Meyers: stock schlockmeister or best initial public offering underwriter in the securities industry?

Meyers said last week a new focus on quality places him in the latter category, despite some early failings at his Beverly Hills-based H.J. Meyers investment banking house.

"The quality of the company and its management, and the pricing for the investor, are the keys to a successful underwriting today," said Meyers. "The 1980s were an era of instant gratification for a few, at the expense of the multitudes. But in the 1990s, we are getting back sensible deals and corporations legitimately needing money."

Since 1987, Meyers has raised $72.9 million from investors in nine initial public stock offering and two secondary offerings, earnings kudos from some and brickbats from others.

Lately it has been kudos. Meyers recently was ranked the No. 1 IPO underwriter in the whole country by The IPO Reporter, a trade publication.

The newsletter noted the Meyers' 1989 trio of initial public offerings, New Image Industries, a Canoga Park-based computer software company, Keagan Management, a NutriSystem franchisee based in Palo Alto, Rexhall Industries, a motor home builder based in Saugus, gained an average of 58.75 percent last year.

Meyers' client Rexhall Industries is doing well enough to be ranked the top "Hot Growth Company" in the nation by BusinessWeek magazine, in its May 22 issue.

"Rexhall shows how an entrepreneur can use snazzy styling and a gimlet eye for costs to outmaneuver much bigger rivals," gushed BusinessWeek.

Yet Meyers' track record was not always so exemplarary. Indeed, two of his IPOs -- Allison's Place, and apparel retailer and United Building Services, a drywall installation contractor -- have filed for bankruptcy. Meyers' first seven stock offerings are all losers, from investor's viewpoint.

In Los Angeles' clubby investment banking circles, no one could be reached to go on the record in criticizing Meyers' early deals. One said, "If any Meyers deals made money, it was blind luck."

Meyers said that the last two years of experience has made him and his firm a better underwriter. "We have focused on quality. We have gained experience and have learned," said Meyers. "Now our offerings are doing well, as the record shows."

Some earlier underwritings have been hit by unpredictable events, said Meyers. For example, Keagan Management, which operates NutriSystems franchises, has been hit by recents news that the diet program may be unhealthful, while Logic Devices has been caught in the semi-conductor crimp that has hit much of that industry. And other stocks may still see daylight: BCI Geonetics searches for water, an increasingly scarce commodity, said Meyer.

A 33-year veteran of the securities industry, Meyers started out with Walston & Co. in Denver, before stints of Bache & Co. (now part of Prudential Bache), Loeb Rhoades (since absorbed by Shearson Lehman Hutton) and McDonald, Krieger, Boyer, the predecessor firm to Meyers.

A full-service securities firm, Meyers employs 65 in Beverly Hills, and seven in Newport Beach. His said his strategy is to hire when others fire. "We have tried to do our expanding when others are contracting," said Meyers. "After the crash (of October 1987) we added people we could not have gotten otherwise. We plan to expand the Newport Beach office."