Goldman Sachs wins prime role in Twitter IPO When Twitter publishes the prospectus for its long-awaited initial public offering, the name of Goldman Sachs will appear on the first page, in prime position. Goldman's selection as lead underwriter, known in the industry as the "lead left," is a setback for rival Morgan Stanley, which has dominated tech deals in recent years but was criticised after last year's botched $16.1bn initial public offering of Facebook. The two banks have been vying with each other to nab a bigger piece of the technology IPO pie as a flood of start-ups meet demand from investors wanting to buy shares. This year Goldman has acted as lead left on IPOs for Silver Spring Networks, Gigamon and Ruckus. Morgan Stanley has led offerings for an array of tech companies including Shutterstock, Palo Alto Networks and Workday. But Goldman has now scored one of the biggest tech prizes around. Estimates from Freeman & Co suggest that if Twitter sells 10 per cent of its shares, the underwriting banks could split fees of between $40m-$50m, of which Goldman would take the biggest portion. That's less than the $100m-plus which banks earned from the Facebook IPO but it will come with significant bragging rights on Wall Street. Goldman bankers including Anthony Noto - a former chief financial officer of the National Football League (NFL) who returned to the bank to co-head the telecommunications, media and technology group with George Lee - worked with Nick Giovanni in San Francisco to help secure the highly-valued deal. The size of the deal means that a wide array of banks, will also have a hand in the much-anticipated IPO. Bank of America will be a joint-bookrunner for the offering according to people familiar with the matter. JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley will also work on the deal, according to others also familiar. Spokespeople for each of the five banks declined to comment. News of Twitter's filing with the SEC ahead of an IPO came in the same week that Verizon sold a record-breaking $49bn in bonds to help finance its $130bn acquisition of Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless, a deal expected to generate fees of more than $500m for the banks involved. Some bankers reckon that companies are scrambling to get deals done in order to lock in lower interest rates and higher demand from investors before the Federal Reserve begins to raise rates - providing a surge of fee income for the banks. "I think we're kind of at a tipping point," said one senior banker who says he expects investment banking activity to pick up. People have woken up and said if I have something strategic to do that's a compelling reason to act now. "The market right now is extremely strong and who knows how long that is going to last," said one person familiar with the Twitter deal. He added that Twitter may be trying to emulate LinkedIn's successful 2011 debut on the New York Stock Exchange. LinkedIn "did it at the right time, they did when growth was ahead of them, they did it when there was still positive information yet to be announced," the person said. They didn't wait to the last minute. I think the industry feels that Facebook waited for too long to go public. The person added that the omission of Morgan Stanley from the lead left role in the Twitter offering may make life at the bank awkward for Michael Grimes, its West Coast-based head of technology banking, who led the Facebook IPO. Morgan Stanley "may agree to [take a diminished role in the deal], but that's what is ultimately putting Michael Grimes in a difficult position," the person said. Additional reporting by Daniel Schäfer and Lina Saigol in London and Tom Braithwaite in New York.