ADVISERS: MORGAN STANLEY, JP MORGAN, GOLDMAN SACHS ET AL
MICHAEL GRIMES
MORGAN STANLEY
Morgan Stanley has landed the coveted lead left spot in Facebook’s long-awaited initial public offering and the deal is likely to be managed by its co-head of global technology investment banking, Michael Grimes.
The lucky banker has been on good terms with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and former Google executive, since Morgan Stanley advised the search engine through its IPO in 2004. He is said to have been courting Zuckerberg and his team in anticipation of this expected float.
45-year old Grimes joined the pecking order in the late 1980s, starting out at Salomon Brothers before moving to the Frank Quattrone-led technology investment team at Morgan Stanley in 1995.
Grimes has worked on a vast range of transactions worth over $100bn in value, acting for clients such as HP, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Oracle and SanDisk.
His portfolio includes Google’s $1.9bn IPO in 2004, completed by auction.
Forbes added Grimes to its Midas List of the top dealmakers in the technology sector in 2002, where he has repeatedly been ranked top investment banker.
Morgan Stanley’s technology team topped the US IPO league tables in 2011, taking $2.2bn in fees from managing 11 per cent of tech IPOs, according to Thomson Reuters.
It led LinkedIn, Groupon and Zynga through their keenly-watched public offerings last year.
JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Allen & Co and Barclays will act as assistant underwriters on the IPO. While rumour tipped Goldman Sachs to be second in command, the bank – which invited unwelcome controversy when it sold $1.5bn private shares for Facebook last year – was relegated to third place by JP Morgan.
An IPO of more than $1bn would usually pay its underwriters four to five per cent, but it is thought as little as one per cent of Facebook’s winnings could end up in the banks’ pockets.