Before Eli Lilly & Co. stunned Wall Street last June by firing Vaughn D. Bryson as president and chief executive, Deerfield-based Vector Securities International Inc. had been rating that company’s stock a “buy.”
On Thursday, Bryson got another “buy” rating from Vector. It hired him as its vice chairman.
The 50-member firm, which specializes in industries related to the life sciences, sees Bryson as a valuable addition at a time when the industry is scrambling for money and know-how, said D. Theodore Berghorst, Vector’s chairman and CEO.
“He brings a whole array of experience in manufacturing, marketing and distribution,” Berghorst said.
Vector started conversations with Bryson shortly after he was forced out at Lilly.
The negotiations were helped by the fact that Bryson met Vector’s president, James L. Foght, in 1980 when they were neighbors in London. Foght was director of Du Pont Co.’s pharmaceutical operations in Europe, and Bryson headed Lilly’s operations in Europe.
Bryson, 55, said Thursday that “one of the exciting parts is doing something completely different from anything I’ve done before, but at the same time building on my 32 years in this industry.
“I’m not a financier by training by any means,” he said, but “the Vector team is made up of people with a wide variety of skills and experiences.”
Patricia Padgett Lea, a Vector analyst, had issued a “buy” rating for Indianapolis-based Lilly before Bryson was fired. It was based, she said Thursday, on her appraisal of the direction in which Bryson was taking the company.
Lilly reported its first-ever quarterly loss-$268.5 million-in October 1992. Profits for 1992 were down 46 percent.
Bryson, who received an undisclosed equity ownership in Vector, will work with the firm’s investment banking department.
