This is serious business. Chase Manhattan Corp. It's a potential winner, Mr. Oxley explains, because the fragmented nature of the underwear industry makes it ripe for online sales. After a brief presentation, Mr. Oxley's colleagues pepper him with questions. Everybody, it seems, is an expert on lingerie. A third colleague wonders if the venture has a hot brand to draw customers.
Many questions go unanswered.
And so it goes at the weekly Monday meeting at Chase Capital Partners. Like all venture-capital players, it has had its share of losers, too. Chase's investment in Domain, a New York furniture company, also is in trouble. It's still alive and limping along, but you just don't know what to do with it. Still, CCP has had outsized returns in recent years, as the hot market for initial public stock offerings has swelled the value of the stakes that venture firms own in the companies they have financed.