Banks battle to share bumper $240m deal fee
CITY investment banks are squaring up for a share of the tie-up of AstraZeneca and Pfizer, in what could be the second biggest payday for advisers since the financial crisis.
The cream of Square Mile and Wall Street will tussle in the coming weeks, with the seven banks working on the potential deal sharing $200m to $240m, Thomson Reuters estimates.
Goldman Sach’s Karen Cook, who led last year’s Vodafone-Verizon deal, and broking boss Phil Raper will be in the AstraZeneca corner with Morgan Stanley’s co-head of M&A Colm Donlon and broker Andrew Foster.
They are joined by industry heavyweights Simon Robey, a former Morgan Stanley rainmaker, and ex-UBS dealmaker Simon Warshaw, through their new venture Robey Warshaw.
Warshaw, like Cook, worked on the Vodafone deal. Evercore Partners is also on the ticket and legal advice is on hand from Freshfields partner Julian Long.
In the Pfizer corner, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s well-regarded vice chairman Fares Noujaim and London-based M&A boss Adrian Mee will join forces with JP Morgan’s global head of healthcare M&A Steve Frank and its top banking chief Laurence Hollingworth.
BAML’s Michael Findlay and Geoff Iles and JP’s Mark Breuer and Chris Dickinson will also be sitting on Pfizer’s side of the table. Wall Street firm Guggenheim Securities bolsters the huddle even more.
Meanwhile, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom’s partners Michael Hatchard and Scott Hopkins are offering legal advice.
BEHIND THE DEAL
GOLDMAN SACHS | PHIL RAPER
1 Raper is chairman of corporate broking at Goldman Sachs and last year helped judge City A.M.’s annual awards
2 Raper, who is a big fan of Chelsea Football Club, previously worked for Schroders and spent 16 years working at UBS Warburg.
3 He has a long history with AstraZeneca, with Goldman retained as the company’s mandated corporate broker for a number of years.
Also advising…
AstraZeneca is using Robey Warshaw, Evercore Partners, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Davis Polk and RLM Finsbury. Pfizer is using Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Guggenheim Securities, JP Morgan, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom.