Perella Weinberg Partners LP is setting up shop on the West Coast. The firm has hired as partners two former technology bankers from Lehman Brothers Inc. in San Francisco, Paul Inouye and John Varughese. Inouye covered the Internet from Lehman's Menlo Park, Calif., office, while Varughese was an M&A tech banker.

Inouye has ties to Joe Perella and partners Scott Bruckner, Lynn Perkins and Terry Meguid, having worked at Morgan Stanley from 1999 to 2001. Perella is the former head of Morgan Stanley's investment banking division, and his New York-based advisory shop is stocked with fellow alumni.

"I had long-standing relationships with them, and they identified us with the whole Lehman outcome," says Inouye, 42. "Team dynamics mean a lot. I've known a number of these people for almost a decade now."

A native of California, Inouye attended the University of California, Berkeley and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he knew Varughese's wife. He returned to California to work for Piper Jaffray & Co. and launched now-defunct San Francisco bank Robertson Stephens' Internet investment banking practice. From there, he joined Morgan Stanley and then Lehman.

Varughese, 43, attended Columbia Business School. He has been based in Silicon Valley since 1996 and has worked at Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc., where he specialized in advising software clients. He says he had no intention of leaving Lehman, but "sometimes situations present themselves and you adapt," Varughese says.

Perella's West Coast partners are focused on maintaining client relationships, including those Perella's Rolodex. "These are folks who have worked at big institutions and have extensive connections that have lasted decades," says Inouye.