The Man Behind Facebook\'s I.P.O. Debacle

It is David Ebersman's fault. There is just no way around it.

Mr. Ebersman is Facebook's well-liked, boyish-looking 41-year-old chief financial officer. He's not as well known as Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, or Sheryl Sandberg, its chief operating officer and recently appointed director.

But when it came to Facebook's catastrophe of an initial public offering - the stock reached a new low on Friday, closing at $18.06 - it was Mr. Ebersman, not Mr. Zuckerberg or Ms. Sandberg, who was ultimately the one pulling the strings.

Now, three months after the offering, the company has lost more than $50 billion in market value. Let me say that again for emphasis: Facebook's market value has dropped more than $50 billion in 90 days.

To put that in perspective, that's more market value than Lehman Brothers gave up in the entire year before it filed for bankruptcy.

A lot of ink has been spilled over Facebook's I.P.O., with inves tors and pundits mostly pointing the finger at the Wall Street banks, particularly Morgan Stanley, which led the offering, and at Nasdaq, whose numerous computer glitches on Facebook's first day of trading undermined confidence in the stock. They clearly deserve blame.

Mr. Ebersman's name, however, is mentioned only occasionally, usually in passing and typically only among Silicon Valley's cognoscenti.

And yet if there is one single individual more responsible than any other for the staggering mispricing of Facebook's I.P.O., it is Mr. Ebersman. He signed off on the ever-increasing offer price, which ended up at $38 after the company had originally planned a price range of $29 to $34.

He - almost alone - pushed to flood the market with 25 percent more shares than originally planned in the final days before the offering. And since then, as the point person for investors, he has done little to articulate how or why the company's strategy will lift the stock p rice any time soon.

At a time when investors are looking for some semblance of accountability on Wall Street and in corporate America, it is remarkable that nobody - no bankers, no one at Nasdaq, no one at Facebook - has been fired for botching the offering.

Mr. Zuckerberg reportedly told his employees after the I.P.O., “So, you've heard we're firing David?” But it was only a joke.

Facebook's falling stock price is not just a problem for investors; it is quickly creating real questions inside the company about its ability to retain and attract talented engineers, the lifeblood of any technology company.

Employees who joined the company starting in 2010, for example, are now holding onto restricted shares that were granted at a higher price - $24.10 - than the current trading price. (It should be noted that these are restricted stock units, not underwater stock options, so they do still have real value, but not nearly what the employees had expecte d.)

Employees with some two billion shares will have the opportunity to begin selling them this fall, which is one reason Facebook shares have been depressed lately.

A spokesman for Facebook, Elliot Schrage, declined to comment and would not make Mr. Ebersman available.

Mr. Ebersman appears to have badly misjudged the demand for Facebook's I.P.O. He was aided by errant advice from a cadre of banking advisers, who all had an incentive to sell as many shares as possible at the highest price possible. Morgan Stanley liked $38 a share, JPMorgan Chase thought the shares could be sold for even more, while Goldman Sachs thought they should be sold for slightly less - but all of them quickly jumped on board when Mr. Ebersman made his final decision.

Determining the price of an I.P.O. is as much an art as a science. After a company's roadshow presentations, investors indicate how many shares they plan to buy. They typically ask for more shares than they expect to receive, sometimes twice as many. But in the case of Facebook, investors, anticipating huge demand, put in requests for triple or quadruple the number of shares they expected to get.

The bankers - and Mr. Ebersman - did not seem to appreciate what was happening. They seem to have believed their own hype and took those orders as real, giving them the misplaced confidence to push the I.P.O. to the highest possible price and issue more shares.

But this wasn't a traditional I.P.O. and should never have been priced that way. (People close to Mr. Ebersman say that he decided to issue additional shares with the goal of steadying the price this fall when the lockup on employee share sales expired. Consider that another miscalculation.)

Another issue that weighed on Mr. Ebersman, as well as the bank underwriters, was the example set by LinkedIn. Its shares rose 110 percent on its first day of trading. That might sound good, but it meant that the company misprice d the shares so badly that it effectively gave investors a gift of nearly $350 million. Mr. Ebersman was intent on making sure Facebook didn't “leave money on the table,” according to several people close to him. But by leaving investors with little upside, he may have created additional pressure on the stock.

Both LinkedIn's and Facebook's I.P.O.'s should be considered failures - they were extreme examples of what could happen on the upside and the downside. The ideal offering lands somewhere in the middle. Still, there is no question that investors would prefer another LinkedIn over a Facebook, and they have every incentive to make an example of the company - and Mr. Ebersman - so that other companies don't try to wipe out that first-day “pop.”

None of this is meant to suggest that Mr. Ebersman is dumb or unqualified. A graduate of Brown who was the chief financial officer of Genentech when he was just 34, Mr. Ebersman is bright, perhaps even brilliant. He was recruited to Facebook by Ms. Sandberg, a hire that was considered quite a coup at the time. He should clearly be given credit for negotiating favorable and extraordinarily large credit lines - $8 billion worth - with Wall Street banks, which could provide the company with an important lifeline should the economy and the company's fortunes suffer.

The disclosures in the company's I.P.O. prospectus - which were Mr. Ebersman's responsibility - were, for the most part, pretty transparent, giving investors a good sense of the business, despite all the hype. And the I.P.O., for all its failures, filled Facebook's coffers with some $10 billion.

Still, Mr. Ebersman has his work cut out for him as he tries to regain the trust of shareholders. He recently came to New York to meet with big investors, including hedge funds and institutional investors. Some invitations for meetings were oddly, and somewhat imperiously, sent out on Thursday night for meetings on Friday . Given that it was summer, some investors sent their junior analysts.

When Facebook's I.P.O. first started to appear troubled back in May, I purposely avoided weighing in. Frankly, I thought it was too soon to judge.

But we have passed the pivotal three-month mark.

Statistically, the three-month mark is a much better predictor of a company's future share price than any of the closing prices in the first week or two. According to Richard Peterson of Capital IQ, 67 percent of technology companies whose shares lagged their I.P.O. price after 90 days were still laggards after a year. Until Facebook's stock rebounds, Mr. Ebersman will be feeling the pressure.

Citibank Hid Firm\'s Financial Troubles, Ex-Partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf Says

There has been no shortage of finger-pointing since the collapse of the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, with most of the animus directed toward the firm's managing partner and its broader leadership.

Now, an aggrieved former partner has taken aim at an unlikely target: Citibank.

In a recent court filing, the former partner, Steven P. Otillar, says Citibank conspired with Dewey's management to hide the law firm's true financial condition in the months before its collapse.

Mr. Otillar made the claim in response to a lawsuit brought against him by Citibank seeking repayment of a $210,000 loan. The bank lent Mr. Otillar the money to pay for his capital contribution to Dewey when he joined the partnership in August 2011. (New partners typically must make a financial contribution to a law firm when they join.)

The filing said that Citibank had extended Mr. Otillar the loan as part of a fraudulent scheme intended to benefit Citibank and Dewey's management. By re cruiting him and other partners to join the financially troubled firm in the months leading up to its demise - and collecting millions of dollars from them - Dewey's partners enriched themselves and kept the firm afloat.

Mr. Otillar blames Citibank for his ill-fated career move, saying the bank had a legal obligation to disclose Dewey's financial state. He said that he never would have joined Dewey and taken out a loan from the bank if he had an accurate picture of the firm's condition.

A spokeswoman for Citibank declined to comment. The filing was earlier reported by Reuters.

Mr. Otillar's claim echoes a lawsuit filed this year by Henry Bunsow, another former partner, that accused the firm's leadership of running a Ponzi scheme that had used money contributed from the newly hired to pay existing partners and finance the imperiled firm. Like Mr. Otillar, Mr. Bunsow joined Dewey just months before it filed for bankruptcy.

The accusations made by Mr. Ot illar and Mr. Bunsow are just a blip in the broader legal fallout from Dewey's failure. Once one of country's largest law firms, Dewey entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May after a debt-heavy balance sheet and poor financial performance forced it to slash partners' pay, leading to a mass exodus.

In recent weeks, roughly half of Dewey's former partners agreed to return about $70 million of their past compensation that will help pay the firm's creditors, which are owed more than $300 million. By agreeing to this “clawback” settlement, these partners insulate themselves from future lawsuits related to the firm's dissolution. A group of partners who did not sign on to the settlement have asked a judge to appoint an examiner to investigate the unwinding of the firm.

The Manhattan district attorney is also investigating whether there were any financial improprieties committed by Steven H. Davis, Dewey's former chairman. Mr. Davis has denied any wrongdoing .

Mr. Otillar's claim highlights a major cause of Dewey's demise. The firm recruited Mr. Otillar in 2010 as part of an aggressive growth plan, one of several dozen lawyers lured to the firm with lavish multiyear pay guarantees. Mr. Otillar was part of a push to expand Dewey's Houston office and, with it, its energy-industry practice.

Yet, as Dewey added Mr. Otillar and dozens of new partners to its ranks with guaranteed contracts, it had already piled up millions of dollars in back pay owed to existing partners. The firm, even after taking a hit during the financial crisis, also took on substantial debt to fuel its expansion plans.

Citibank was one of the banks that facilitated Dewey's growth. It had a varied and lucrative relationship with the firm. Not only did it finance Dewey's operations through a large line of credit, but it also lent money to newly hired partners to cover their capital contributions to the firm.

Mr. Otillar said that when Dewey recruited him from Baker & McKenzie in 2010, he raised concerns about the firm's finances. Management assured him that the firm was in growth mode and that he was joining at the perfect time, according to the court filing. And then after he came on board, he said, Dewey and Citibank pushed him to participate in the bank's loan program so he could make his capital contribution as soon as possible.

Like virtually all of the more than 300 Dewey partners, Mr. Otillar has found a new home. Now a partner in the Houston office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Mr. Otillar declined to comment.

Multinationals Stake a Claim in Venture Capital

MENLO PARK, Calif. - New York, London and Hong Kong are common addresses for blue-chip multinationals. Now Silicon Valley is, too.

From downtown San Francisco to Palo Alto, companies like American Express and Ford are opening offices and investing millions of dollars in local start-ups. This year, American Express opened a venture capital office in Facebook's old headquarters in downtown Palo Alto. Less than three miles away, General Motors' research lab houses full-time investment professionals, recent transplants from Detroit.

“American Express is a 162-year-old company, and this is a moment of transformation,” said Harshul Sanghi, a managing partner at American Express Ventures, the venture capital arm of the financial company. “We're here to be a part of the fabric of innovation.”

The companies are raising their profiles in Silicon Valley at a shaky time for the broader venture capital industry. While top players like Andreessen Horowitz and A ccel Partners have grown bigger, most venture capital firms are struggling with anemic returns.

The market for start-ups has also dimmed, in the wake of the sharp stock declines of Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, the once high-flying threesome that was supposed to lead the next Internet boom.

But unlike traditional venture capitalists, multinationals are less interested in profits. They are here to buy innovation - or at least get a peek at the next wave of emerging technologies.

In August, Starbucks invested $25 million in Square, the mobile payments company based in San Francisco, which will be used in the coffee chain's stores. This year, Citi Ventures, a unit of Citigroup, invested in Plastic Jungle, an online exchange for gift cards, and Jumio, an online credit card scanner.

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, the large Spanish banking group, opened an office in San Francisco last year. The team, which has about $100 million to fund local start-ups, is looking for consumer applications that will help the bank create new businesses and better understand its customers.

“We are in one of the most regulated and risk-averse industries in the world, so innovation doesn't come naturally to us,” said Jay Reinemann, the head of the BBVA office. “We want to avoid the video-rental model. We want to evolve alongside our consumers.”

The companies are hoping to tap into the entrepreneurial mind-set. Multinationals, with their huge payrolls and sprawling operations, are not as nimble as the younger upstarts. While they are rich in resources, big companies tend to be more gun-shy and usually require more time to bring a product to market.

“Companies cannot innovate as fast as start-ups; increasingly they realize they have to look outside,” said Gerald Brady, a managing director at Silicon Valley Bank, who previously led the early-stage venture arm of Siemens. “We think it's happening a lot more than peopl e recognize or acknowledge.”

Of the 750 corporate venture units, roughly 200 were established in the last two years, according to Global Corporate Venturing, a publication that tracks the market. In the last year, corporations participated in more than $20 billion of start-up investments.

Big business has played the role of venture capitalist before, with limited success. During the waning days of the dot-com boom, financial, media and telecommunications companies sank billions of dollars into start-ups.

The collapse was devastating. Although some managed to make money, far more burned through their cash. In 2002, Accenture, the consulting firm, scrapped its venture capital unit after taking more than $200 million in write-downs. The previous year, Wells Fargo reported $1.6 billion in losses on its venture capital investments. Dell, the computer maker, closed its venture arm in 2004 and sold its portfolio to an investment firm. (It resurrected the unit la st year).

Companies say they are taking a different approach this time. Rather than making big bets across the Internet sector, investments are smaller and more selective.

“We invest with the idea that we're a potential customer for a company,” Jon Lauckner, G.M.'s chief technology officer said. “We're not looking to make several $5 million investments and make $10 million on each. That would be nice, but it's not important.”

As they try to find the right start-ups, some are forging tight bonds with local firms. BBVA, for example, is an investor in 500 Startups, a venture firm that specializes in early-stage start-ups and is run by Dave McClure, a former PayPal executive.

Unilever and PepsiCo are limited partners in Physic Ventures, a venture capital firm designed to help corporate investors build commercial partnerships with portfolio companies. Both Unilever and PepsiCo have installed full-time employees in Physic's downtown San Francisco o ffices.

American Express has stacked its investment team with technology veterans. Mr. Sanghi, the head of the office, has spent roughly three decades in Silicon Valley and formerly led Motorola Mobility's venture arm. Through its network of relationships, the office has met with roughly 300 start-ups in the last six months.

The connections have started to pay off. Vinod Khosla, the head of Khosla Ventures and a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, introduced the American Express team to the executives at Ness Computing, a mobile start-up. In August, American Express partnered with Singtel, the Singapore wireless company, to invest $15 million in Ness.

Mr. Sanghi says Ness is a logical investment and a potential partner. The start-up's application connects users to local businesses through customized search results.

“It's trying to bring consumers and merchants together in meaningful ways,” he said. “And we're always trying to find new ways to build value for our merchant and consumer network.”

For start-ups, a big corporate benefactor can bring resources and an established platform to promote and distribute products. Envia Systems, an electric car battery maker, picked General Motors to lead its last financing round because it wanted to have a close relationship with a major automaker, its “absolute end customer,” said Atul Kapadia, Envia's chief executive.

Although the company received higher offers from other potential corporate investors, Envia wanted G.M.'s advice on how to build the battery so that one day it could be a standard in the company's electric cars. After the investment, G.M. offered the start-up access to its experts and facilities in Detroit, which Envia is using.

“You want to listen to your end customer because they will help you figure out what specifications you need to get into the final product,” said Mr. Kapadia.

A marriage with corporate investors can be compli cated. Besides G.M., Asahi Kasei and Asahi Glass, the Japanese auto-part makers, are also investors in Envia. They both build rival battery products for Japanese car companies.

Mr. Kapadia, who prizes their insights into Japan's market, says his company is careful about what intellectual property information it shares with its investors. At board meetings, confidential data about Envia's customers is discussed only at the end, so that conflicted corporate investors can easily excuse themselves.

“In our marriage, there has not been a single ethics concern, because all the expectations were hashed out in the beginning,” Mr. Kapadia said. “But I can see how this could be a land mine.”

For the big corporations, start-up investing is fraught with the same risk as traditional venture investing. Their bets might be modest, but blowups can be embarrassing and can rankle shareholders, who may see venture investing as a distraction from the core business.

OnLive, an online gaming service, offers a recent reminder.

The company was once a darling of corporate investors, with financing from the likes of Time Warner, AutoDesk, HTC and AT&T. At one point, it was valued north of $1 billion.

Despite its early promise, the start-up crashed in August, taking many in Silicon Valley by surprise. The company laid off its employees, announced a reorganization and in the process slashed the value of the shares to zero.

“It can be painful when a deal goes sour,” James Mawson, the founder of Global Corporate Venturing, said.

A Pivotal Week for Europe\'s Central Bank Leader

Hannelore Foerster/Bloomberg News

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank.

FRANKFURT - The last time addressed the news media after a meeting of the , on Aug. 2, he disappointed investors who wanted him to crack his whip and immediately bring bond markets to heel. The markets dropped even before Mr. Draghi was done speaking.

Only in subsequent days and weeks did the bond markets calm down, as investors evidently absorbed his underlying message: that the central bank intended to take meaningful action against debt crisis even if quick remedies were not possible.

But this Thursday, when the central bank meets again, Mr. Draghi, the bank's president, could have a far harder time reconciling the expectations of twitchy financial markets with the limitations of his power. Although investors are counting on bold action, analysts say the bank probably needs more time to resolve internal differences and deliver on a promise to use its financial clout to tame runaway borrowing costs for the most troubled euro zone countries.

“Market expectation of Draghi's ability to maneuver may be exaggerated,” said Marie Diron, a former economist at the central bank who advises the consulting firm Ernst & Young. “That could lead to a sell-off.”

Some analysts do expect the central bank to cut the benchmark interest rate to 0.5 percent on Thursday, from its already record low level of 0.75 percent. Although that reduction might not impress investors as much as a bold intervention in the bond market, it could at least indicate Mr. Draghi's commitment to his July promise of doing whatever it takes to preserve the euro.

The bank meeting is probably the central event, but not the only one, in what is likely to be a busy week for the euro zone. Political leaders will also continue making the rounds of one another's capitals to plot crisis strategy.

One of the most closely watched meetings, also on Thursday, will take place when Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, visits the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, in Madrid. Spain's debt drama seems to have entered a dangerous phase, with some of the country's biggest regions requesting financial aid from a central government already staggered by its own high borrowing costs.

Mr. Draghi at least temporarily mollified markets last week with an opinion piece in the German newspaper Die Zeit that was widely interpreted as signaling the central bank's determination to begin buying the bonds of troubled euro zone governments, despite resistance from Germany. Exceptional measures may be required, Mr. Draghi wrote, “when markets are fragmented or influenced by irrational fears.”

Top European Central Bank officials have indicated that they are working overtime to determine how best to keep borrowing costs for countries like Spain and Italy affordable. Mr. Draghi and other members of the bank's executive board even canceled plans to attend the annual meeting this past weekend of global central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyo., saying there was too much to do in Frankfurt.

So far, the mere promise of central bank action has had an effect. Since spiking in late July, bond yields, a measure of a government's borrowing costs, have fallen below 6 percent on 10-year debt for Italy and below 7 percent for Spain - levels considered acceptable, if not exactly comfortable.

But the yields, which have begun to edge higher again in recent days, are linked to expectations that Mr. Draghi will provide specifics of the central bank's bond-buying strategy at the news conference Thursday after the meeting of the central bank's governing council.

Mr. Draghi is thought to have the support of most of the council's 23 members. But he must contend with stiff and vocal resistance to bond buying from Jens Weidmann, the president of the German Bundesbank.

The Bundesbank declined to comment Friday on a report in Bild, a German newspaper, that Mr. Weidmann had even threatened to resign in protest over the bond buying, a course of action that has become something of a tradition among disgruntled German central bankers.

The Bundesbank would only refer to an interview published in Der Spiegel magazine last week, in which Mr. Weidmann said, “I can carry out my duty best if I remain in office.”

A Pivotal Week for Europe\'s Central Bank Leader

Hannelore Foerster/Bloomberg News

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank.

FRANKFURT - The last time addressed the news media after a meeting of the , on Aug. 2, he disappointed investors who wanted him to crack his whip and immediately bring bond markets to heel. The markets dropped even before Mr. Draghi was done speaking.

Only in subsequent days and weeks did the bond markets calm down, as investors evidently absorbed his underlying message: that the central bank intended to take meaningful action against debt crisis even if quick remedies were not possible.

But this Thursday, when the central bank meets again, Mr. Draghi, the bank's president, could have a far harder time reconciling the expectations of twitchy financial markets with the limitations of his power. Although investors are counting on bold action, analysts say the bank probably needs more time to resolve internal differences and deliver on a promise to use its financial clout to tame runaway borrowing costs for the most troubled euro zone countries.

“Market expectation of Draghi's ability to maneuver may be exaggerated,” said Marie Diron, a former economist at the central bank who advises the consulting firm Ernst & Young. “That could lead to a sell-off.”

Some analysts do expect the central bank to cut the benchmark interest rate to 0.5 percent on Thursday, from its already record low level of 0.75 percent. Although that reduction might not impress investors as much as a bold intervention in the bond market, it could at least indicate Mr. Draghi's commitment to his July promise of doing whatever it takes to preserve the euro.

The bank meeting is probably the central event, but not the only one, in what is likely to be a busy week for the euro zone. Political leaders will also continue making the rounds of one another's capitals to plot crisis strategy.

One of the most closely watched meetings, also on Thursday, will take place when Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, visits the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, in Madrid. Spain's debt drama seems to have entered a dangerous phase, with some of the country's biggest regions requesting financial aid from a central government already staggered by its own high borrowing costs.

Mr. Draghi at least temporarily mollified markets last week with an opinion piece in the German newspaper Die Zeit that was widely interpreted as signaling the central bank's determination to begin buying the bonds of troubled euro zone governments, despite resistance from Germany. Exceptional measures may be required, Mr. Draghi wrote, “when markets are fragmented or influenced by irrational fears.”

Top European Central Bank officials have indicated that they are working overtime to determine how best to keep borrowing costs for countries like Spain and Italy affordable. Mr. Draghi and other members of the bank's executive board even canceled plans to attend the annual meeting this past weekend of global central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyo., saying there was too much to do in Frankfurt.

So far, the mere promise of central bank action has had an effect. Since spiking in late July, bond yields, a measure of a government's borrowing costs, have fallen below 6 percent on 10-year debt for Italy and below 7 percent for Spain - levels considered acceptable, if not exactly comfortable.

But the yields, which have begun to edge higher again in recent days, are linked to expectations that Mr. Draghi will provide specifics of the central bank's bond-buying strategy at the news conference Thursday after the meeting of the central bank's governing council.

Mr. Draghi is thought to have the support of most of the council's 23 members. But he must contend with stiff and vocal resistance to bond buying from Jens Weidmann, the president of the German Bundesbank.

The Bundesbank declined to comment Friday on a report in Bild, a German newspaper, that Mr. Weidmann had even threatened to resign in protest over the bond buying, a course of action that has become something of a tradition among disgruntled German central bankers.

The Bundesbank would only refer to an interview published in Der Spiegel magazine last week, in which Mr. Weidmann said, “I can carry out my duty best if I remain in office.”

U.S. Companies Ready if Greeks Drop Euro

Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press

A flea market in Athens. In a survey this summer, an advisory firm found that 80 percent of clients polled expected Greece to leave the euro zone, and a fifth of those expected more to follow.

Even as Greece desperately tries to avoid defaulting on its debt, American companies are preparing for what was once unthinkable: that Greece could soon be forced to leave the euro zone.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has looked into filling trucks with cash and sending them over the Greek border so clients can continue to pay local employees and suppliers in the event money is unavailable. Ford has configured its computer systems so they will be able to immediately handle a new Greek currency.

No one knows just how broad the shock waves from a Greek exit would be, but big American banks and consulting firms have also been doing a brisk business advising their corporate clients on how to prepare for a splintering of the euro zone.

That is a striking contrast to the assurances from European politicians that the crisis is manageable and that the currency union can be held together. On Thursday, the European Central Bank will consider measures that would ease pressure on Europe's cash-starved countries.

JPMorgan Chase, though, is taking no chances. It has already created new accounts for a handful of American giants that are reserved for a new drachma in Greece or whatever currency might succeed in other countries.

Stock markets around the world have rallied this summer on hopes that European leaders will solve the Continent's debt problems, but the quickening tempo of preparations by big business for a potential Greek exit this summer suggests that investors may be unduly optimistic. Many executives are deeply skeptical that Greece will accede to the austere fiscal policies being demanded by Europe in return for financial assistance.

Greece's abandonment of the euro would most likely create turmoil in global markets, which have experienced periodic sell-offs whenever Europe's debt problems have flared up over the last two and a half years. It would also increase the pressure on Italy and Spain, much larger economic powers that are struggling with debt problems of their own.

“It's safe to say most companies are preparing,” said Paul Dennis, a program manager with Corporate Executive Board, a private advisory firm.

In a survey this summer, the firm found that 80 percent of clients polled expected Greece to leave the euro zone, and a fifth of those expected more countries to follow.

“Fifteen months ago when we started looking at this, we said it was unthinkable,” said Heiner Leisten, a partner with the Boston Consulting Group in Cologne, Germany, who heads up its global insurance practice. “It's not impossible or unthinkable now.”

Mr. Leisten's firm, as well as PricewaterhouseCoopers, has already considered the timing of a Greek withdrawal - for example, the news might hit on a Friday night, when global markets are closed.

A bank holiday could quickly follow, with the stock market and most local financial institutions shutting down, while new capital controls make it hard to move money in and out of the country.

“We've had conversations with several dozen companies and we're doing work for a number of these,” said Peter Frank, who advises corporate treasurers as a principal at Pricewaterhouse. “Almost all of that has come in over the transom in the last 90 days.”

He added: “Companies are asking some very granular questions, like ‘If a news release comes out on a Friday night announcing that Greece has pulled out of the euro, what do we do?' In some cases, companies have contingency plans in place, such as having someone take a train to Athens with 50,000 euros to pay employees.”

The recent wave of preparations by American companies for a Greek exit from the euro signals a stark switch from their stance in the past, said Carole Berndt, head of global transaction services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

“When we started giving advice, they came for the free sandwiches and chocolate cookies,” she said jokingly. “Now that has changed, and contingency planning is focused on three primary scenarios - a single-country exit, a multicountry exit and a breakup of the euro zone in its entirety.”