Do UBS Warburg, PaineWebber and ABN Amro Rothschild have a drugs problem which they're not telling us about? The three banks are leading the IPO on Nasdaq of a Franco-American pharmaceuticals firm called DrugAbuse Sciences, which specialises in 'promoting abstinence, preventing relapse and treating overdoses for alcohol, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine abusers'.
Of course, getting inside a company and really understanding its products is critical to winning an IPO mandate, which is why CSFB bankers were ecstatic after winning the Playboy IPO and their colleagues at Commerzbank aroused at the IPO for Beate Uhse, the German chain of sex shops. Let's hope that none of the bankers on the DrugAbuse deal has first-hand experience of its productsâ¦
