Bill Hambrecht, one of the founding fathers of the technology IPO market, has waded into the debate over commissions and allocations on hot IPOs in the US, which is currently the subject of a wide-ranging investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In an interview with Upside, a US financial magazine, Hambrecht publicly slammed the fees and commission structure on US IPOs. In particular, he criticises the apparently widespread practice of lead managers in allocating big blocks of stock to favoured clients who in return channel big commission flows back to them.