"ALIBABA RELIED ON SERAPHIM FOR ITS SALE TO YAHOO"

HatTip to Jeff. Interesting that Alibaba use Seraphim, a boutique investment bank like my old firm, as an advisor on the Yahoo! deal. Similar to when I was with iRG Limited, it makes sense since they can provide equivalent services (assuming the talent of individuals is all equal) if you don't need the connection to a larger institution's research or sales groups, and just advice on the deal side.

I'm sure Matt and others were wishing that they got this deal. Anyway, I'll make a plug for my old firm. If you need a boutique investbank in Asia for advisory work in the TMT (technology, media and telecommunications) space, contact iRG. Matt Burlage is a stud. He was part of the team along with Ravi Sarathy that took the first wave of Asian tech companies onto NASDAQ, such as Pacific Internet, Korea Thrunet, and Chinadotcom. They were ranked Number One in ex-Japan Corporate Asia, and Number Two in Corporate Asia, by Institutional Investor back in 2000. The firm has solid inroads in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, and for Korea work avoid them since their guy for that market is a dork.