Advisers Rob Ritchie
GOLDMAN SACHS
FOR its $2bn bond issue, AstraZeneca appointed four leading Wall Street firms to underwrite the deal and help bring the bonds to the market: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, HSBC Securities and JP Morgan Securities.
Leading for Goldman Sachs on the offering was its head of European debt capital markets Rob Ritchie.
Ritchie has a long association with AstraZeneca, having worked on its huge $6.9bn issue of 2-year, 5-year, 10-year and 30-year notes in 2007. At the time this was the third largest issue on record but in keeping with the climate of the firm it had to pay a 5.9 per cent coupon on its 10-year bond.
Ritchie has also led Goldman’s work on a number of other bond deals for FTSE 100 firms.
These include some of the biggest names on the index, including such giants as Tesco, Centrica, BAE Systems and Unilever.
Ritchie previously worked in the London office of Swiss investment bank UBS until 2007, when he left to join Goldman Sachs, transferring across to work out of its London office.
Helping lead the underwriting deal was Morgan Stanley, which also has a long track record helping bring global giants to the bond market.
It too has worked on a Unilever bond issuance, along with other issues for companies such as SSE, Unilever, and GlaxoSmithKline.