There aren't many real ex-rocket scientists for hire, but another area investment banks might look at is nuclear engineering - a skill that's becoming less sought after these days. Merrill Lynch's affable new hire Dante Roscini spent five years designing nuclear power plant before dwindling enthusiasm for the nuclear industry prompted a rethink. After business school he ended up at Goldman Sachs in 1988.
His timing could hardly have been better. After two years as a generalist in New York, he was assigned to the European equity capital markets department (ECM), which had been created in the mid-1980s by Eric Dobkin. Roscini's move to London coincided with an explosive growth in European privatizations and other equity issues. In 1990 total European equity issuance amounted to $4 billion. Last year it was close to $100 billion.
Goldman's ECM was in the thick of this business. Specializing in southern Europe, Roscini led several breakthrough transactions, helping to introduce US-style equity underwriting and distribution techniques to continental Europe. He led the $1 billion flotation of Credito Italiano, Italy's first privatization and the first deal in the world to involve a negative yield bond.
He went on to lead what was then, at $3.2