the Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, June 3, 2007 7:00 pm
First National Investment Banking, the investment bank created in April by First National of Nebraska, announced that it has acquired the investment banking firm of Cybus Capital Markets LLC of Des Moines, to become the continent’s leading investment bank in the food, agricultural and biofuels industries.
Terms were not announced.
Cybus will retain its name and all employees, but will be operated as a division of First National Investment Banking, according to Clark D. Lauritzen, the firm’s senior vice president and general manager.
“Cybus and First National Investment Banking have combined their considerable resources and experience to build the premier food, agribusiness and renewable energy investment banking practice in North America,” Lauritzen said.
With more than 200 clients, and more than $3 billion in closed transactions, Cybus is a leading private investment banking firm specializing in providing financial advisory services to middle-market businesses, according to James Eiler, Cybus’ managing partner, who will continue in his current role at FNIB.
Among its recent transactions, according to its Web site, Cybus found $9.8 million of growth capital for Premium Protein Products of Lincoln, a custom meatpacker.
“With our offices in Des Moines and Sacramento, Calif., and an affiliate in St. Augustine, Fla., Cybus adds a national reach to First National Investment Banking’s offerings,” Eiler said. “Cybus also brings not only decades of capital raising and (mergers and acquisition) experience to augment FNIB’s menu of services, but an immediate extension into the traditional agribusiness and food-chain corporate client marketplace with specific entree into the growing areas such as the organic, natural, health and wellness, and nutraceutical segments where Cybus has a very robust practice.”
First National Investment Banking offers Cybus’ clients the resources of one of the largest and fastest growing full-service investment banks in the region, Lauritzen said, “plus the clout of First National of Nebraska, Inc., the fourth largest U.S. agricultural lender, with more than $18 billion in assets and over 7,500 employees located across the nation.”
First National Investment Banking calls itself one of the fastest growing investment banking firms in the Midwest.
FNIB is headquartered in Omaha, Neb. and has regional offices in Kansas City, Mo., Des Moines, Iowa and Sacramento, Calif.
For more information, visit www.fnib.com and www.cybus.com