Bankers on Sanofi deal bag $125m
Advisers to the $20.5bn-plus (£12.75bn) Sanofi-Aventis takeover of US biotech firm Genzyme will walk away with an estimated $125m in fees, corporate finance house Freeman & Co said yesterday.
Banking teams for both sides, which include JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, will earn around $60m each for the nine months of work it took to close the deal.
Sanofi’s lead financial advisers – New York-based Evercore Partners and JPMorgan Chase – will earn $50m-60m, while Genzyme’s bankers, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, should take home $53m-65m.
A further $120m of lending and M&A fees will be paid to JP Morgan and French banks BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, which arranged an estimated $15bn in loans for Sanofi, Freeman said.
Paris-based Sanofi will pay $74 in cash per share plus a contingent sum dependent on Genzyme’s experimental drug Lemtrada.
Evercore’s team included founder Roger Altman and senior managing director Francois Maisonrouge, who advised on Pfizer’s $68bn takeover of Wyeth in 2009. JPMorgan’s work was led by its vice chairman of investment banking, Robbie Huffines.
The Credit Suisse team included vice chairman Scott Lindsay while Goldman’s side included managing director Marshall Smith.