Regular visitors to this site may recall that in September we
launched a survey to identify the Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers in three key industry sectors: healthcare, information technology and industrial. Well, despite a few minor distractions in the financial markets since then, The Deal's readers came through for us and identified the companies doing the best work in M&A in those sectors -- which just goes to show how important that work is.
Wednesday we honored the winners in a luncheon ceremony at the Grand Hyatt in New York. The lunch capped The Deal's
M&A Outlook 2009 conference, which (inevitably) featured notable speakers giving an avid audience all kinds of insights into the mess our financial sector is in.
Nice to be able to end on an upbeat, real-economy note. The awards ceremony, ably emceed by Brian Sullivan of Fox Business News (that's him at the podium, left) was good fun.
And the winners are:
- Healthcare: Abbott Laboratories. Runner-up, Johnson & Johnson
- Information Technology: Cisco Systems Inc. Runner-up, Oracle Corp.
- Industrial: General Electric Co. (Three-way tie for second, so no runner-up)
Accepting for Cisco was their corporate development chief Ned Hooper. Since Ned couldn't accept in person, we showed a
video of Ned, which we've also posted here. Brian also promised to Facebook Ned to talk about telepresence. Brian, I think this award warrants a Superpoke, don't you?
Aileen Stockburger (right) accepted for J&J. She's vice president of worldwide business development
for Johnson & Johnson's medical devices and diagnostics group.
For Abbott, Sean Murphy (top right), vice president of licensing and new business development, brought his deal team in from Chicagoland.
Accepting for GE (and leading a contingent of GE deal folks) was Robert Duffy (left), general manager for global business development.
All in all, a good showing for the inaugural installment of a ranking that over time should do a lot to spotlight the companies that do deals best.
Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all--especially those of you who filled out the survey. You know a lot about these topics, and we appreciate your willingness to share it.
We'll be back next year with a bigger survey, all the better for your suggestions.
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Kenneth Klee
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Juergen Lasowski
And the winners are...
