THE DEAL MARKS 10TH YEAR COVERING THE DEAL ECONOMY WITH MAGAZINE SPECIAL ISSUE

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- September 14, 2009 -- The Deal LLC, a diversified media company, commemorates a decade of looking at the world of finance, legal and corporate growth through the prism of the deal with a special 10th anniversary issue of The Deal magazine.

Founded on the philosophy that a deal economy exists, that it is sustained by a symbiotic, global community of diverse constituents with a common interest in all types of dealmaking, the company's original The Daily Deal newspaper launched a new style of financial journalism 10 years ago on Sept 15, 1999. 

While the editorial mission has remained, the way the media company goes about creating, presenting and delivering content has changed. All the company's content from deal stories to analysis to commentary to its rich flow of data is consolidated into one easy-to-use, customizable site, The Deal Pipeline, which carries about 30,000 users, growing daily, through increasing licenses to companies and firms. The Deal magazine, now in its seventh year, is bimonthly, while TheDeal.com provides a discourse on the financial and business news cycle through blogs, videos and events. The newspaper, The Daily Deal, has morphed into a twice-daily digital financial newspaper available through The Deal Pipeline.

"We realize that what makes this all work is reporting and writing that is clear and compelling; we take a lot of pride in the credibility that our editorial operation has amassed since pioneering many aspects of deal coverage," said Kevin Worth, The Deal LLC's CEO and president. "We have learned a few hard truths over this tempestuous decade: There's an ever-larger and more discerning audience that demands in-depth, high-quality, no-punches-pulled deal journalism but you have to be continually open to what that audience really needs to reach it effectively."

"We've had a decade to study all this, a period tested by two devastating bubbles," writes founding editor-in-chief Robert Teitelman in this issue's introduction. "While deal volumes are down, the technology, the people and the infrastructure of dealmaking continue to function. More importantly, the pressure to do deals still persists. The fact is, the deal economy is not a one-dimensional phenomenon. It is an intricate system of feedback loops and counterbalances." 

Commemorating a decade of covering this dynamic space, The Deal magazine's 10th anniversary issue includes the following feature stories and spotlights:

• Nice work if you can get it, by Vipal Monga and Suzanne Stevens. The explosion of M&A over the past decade, coupled with the reality that companies must live with the results of their acquisitions, caused more corporations to build in-house deal teams. As a result, bundling services has become increasingly important to banks at a time when clients need M&A advice less, but this has also turned some clients to turn to boutiques.

• How private equity fits in. The heads of M&A at Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group weigh in on the financing market. 

• What do clients what? Four leading dealmakers speak about today's client-banker relationship. 

• Where banks add value. Four corporate dealmakers reveal when they find banks relevant.

• Between reality and the mirage, by David Carey. Some of the most sophisticated minds in finance operate in private equity. Still, over the past decades, they have been drawn to overheated deals as in the case of Global Crossing and Nalco Co. So where does private equity go from now?  

• Paul Levy on private equity's fee habit, by Christine Idzelis. JLL Partners Inc.'s managing director Paul Levy discusses how firm's today have come to see themselves by asset size rather than as entrepreneurs.

• Barons of buyouts on the past and future. Five private equity executives muse about the past decade.

• Bubble, trouble, toil and muddle, by Vyvyan Tenorio. In the late 1990's, venture capital generated extraordinary returns on high-risk companies. Then came the collapse--and the industry has struggle to find its way ever since. Insiders agree that change is necessary, but how so is unclear.

• Venture capital: The changing narrative. Quotes on the industry going back from 1999.

• NEA and the power of perseverance. Richard Kramlich, general partner and co-founder of New Enterprise Associates Inc., describes how his firm has maintained staying power.

• From liquidity to liquidation, by Matt Miller. The story of bankruptcy this past decade is in many ways the story of liquidity. Too much liquidity sowed the seeds for the current cycle of distress; even companies that escape liquidation can pay a huge price.

• Alavarez & Marsal ride the turnaround wave. Involved in a wide range of this past decade's highest-profile bankruptcies and liquidations, including that of Lehaman Brothers, Tony Alavarez, the turnaround firm's co-head, describes his company's growth.

• Richard Cieri and the ubiquity of failure. Representing some of the most prominent corporate debtors of the past decade, Richard Cieri, head of Kirland & Ellis LLP's restructuring practice, says he is flabbergasted over the kinds of companies that have succumbed recently.

• Miller Buckfire on restructuring's learning curve. Investment bankers Henry Miller and Kenneth Buckfire say that clients are beginning to come for help earlier in the bankruptcy process, but it's been a steep learning curve. 

About The Deal LLC
The Deal LLC, (www.thedeal.com), is a diversified media company that is the authoritative voice of the deal economy. We serve the global deal community-corporate and financial dealmakers, advisers and institutional investors-by providing business and financial news and information that offers fresh insights on the deal economy, a set of interrelated activities, focused on dealmaking of all kinds, whose purpose is to generate corporate growth in a continually changing global market. We offer a comprehensive line of print and electronic products - The Deal Pipeline, The Deal, The Daily Deal and TheDeal.com - and live annual events including Private Capital Symposium, Distressed Investing Forum and The Deal Economy. The Deal LLC, a privately held company, is owned by private investment funds and sponsored by Wasserstein & Co. LP.