Bio

J. Stuart Francis is a Senior Managing Director in the firm’s corporate advisory business. Mr. Francis, with over 40 years of technology investment banking experience, is the senior banker in the Evercore office in Menlo Park, California and he leads the firm’s Silicon Valley Technology practice. Mr. Francis joined Evercore in August 2014. Since joining Evercore, he has served as adviser for many of the most visible transactions in the technology sector, including advising Qualcomm on Broadcom’s $129 billion unsolicited takeover proposal of Qualcomm and proxy fight, Qualcomm on its $47 billion acquisition of NXP, HTC on its $1.1 billion cooperation agreement with Google, Tesla on its $6.3 billion acquisition of SolarCity, advising the Special Committee of the Board of Facebook on its share recapitalization via issuance of Class C stock, advising Yahoo on its proxy contest resolution, advising EMC on its sale to Dell for $67 billion, advising Qualcomm on its Strategic Realignment plan with activist Jana Partners, and advising Qualcomm on its sale of Vuforia to PTC Corp. Mr. Francis has also advised Aruba Networks on its sale to Hewlett Packard for $3 billion, advised Abbott Labs on its acquisitions of Alere and St. Jude for $8.4 billion and $25 billion respectively and advised Virtual Instruments on its merger with Load Dynamix. Mr. Francis was previously Vice Chairman of Investment Banking and Chairman of the Global Technology Group for Barclays since 2008, when Barclays purchased the U.S. businesses of Lehman Brothers. Prior to that, he was Vice Chairman of Lehman Brothers and Chairman of the Lehman Brothers Global Technology Group, Head of the Lehman Brothers Global Technology Group and also a member of the Lehman Brothers Investment Banking Executive Committee and Lehman Brothers Operating Committee. Mr. Francis’ prior transactions include advising Qualcomm on 15 transactions, advising Google on the sale of its Motorola cable TV set top box business to Arris for $2.4 billion, serving as joint bookrunner for Facebook on its $16 billion IPO, its $4 billion equity follow-on offering and its $6.5 billion credit facility, and advising Abbott Labs on numerous transactions including on its $55 billion spin-off of AbbVie, its $6.6 billion acquisition of Solvay Pharmaceuticals and its $3.4 billion acquisition of CFR Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Francis has been actively involved in advising many of the most visible Silicon Valley companies including completing IPOs and equity related offerings for Amgen, Aruba Networks, Cisco Systems, Facebook, FireEye, Google, NetApp, Qualcomm, Sunpower and Workday. Mr. Francis has an M.B.A. from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a B.A. from Princeton University. Mr. Francis is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the USGA (United States Golf Association). He has previously served as board chair of both the San Francisco Ballet and Menlo School and he has also served as a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business School Advisory Council and the Princeton University Varsity Club.