In the long winding road from "secret merger talks" to deal completion, bankers, lawyers and corporate dealmakers alike breathe easier when their hard work is met with regulatory and shareholder approvals along the way. Collecting fees is also a source of comfort. Sure, they get money from retainer and reimbursement fees, but the real moolah is in the success fee obtained on deal completion. Now we don't have the exact numbers, but you can get an idea from the deal values mentioned here how these rainmakers are making off.
For example, take the bunch of advisers and counsel from GlaxoSmithKline plc's (NYSE:GSK)
acquisition of skincare company Stiefel Laboratories Inc. The deal is valued at up to $3.6 billion.
After receiving approval from U.S. antitrust officials a month ago, the group received welcome news from the European Commission, which
cleared the deal on Friday. A Lazard team led by Kenneth Jacobs, head of the bank in North America, is advising GSK. The group also includes Alexis de Rosnay, a London-based vice chairman of Lazard International, and David Gluckman, a managing director in the firm's global healthcare group. Blackstone LP's (NYSE:BX) Mary Anne Citrino
and Jeff Pribyl worked with Stiefel.
Then there's the almost 70 lawyers working on the deal according to The Deal Pipeline -- the majority being from Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, led by William Grant and Gregory Astrachan (counseling Stiefel), and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, led by Benet O'Reilly (counseling Glaxo). Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Richards, Layton & Finger PA's William Haubert also got in on the action, The Deal Pipeline shows. See the
full list of names (subscription required).
The folks advising on Oracle Corp.'s (NASDAQ:ORCL) $7.4 billion
acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) aren't sitting so pretty. The Justice Department's 30-day time frame for scrutinizing the acquisition was set to expire two weeks ago. But instead of approving the acquisition, it extended that deadline. After the DOJ, the deal still needs FTC and SEC approval. The companies have overlap in databases but are pretty well separated elsewhere.
Another good sign of possibly reigning in that success fee came Thursday when Sun shareholders owning 62% of the company's outstanding common stock approved the deal. That's welcome news to George Boutros of Credit Suisse Group. He's the sole financial adviser to Sun, which retained 11 lawyers from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC. Boutros also got help from Alston & Bird LLP's Kevin Miller and Brendan McGill. Latham & Watkins LLP counseled Oracle. See
the names from The Deal Pipeline.
Also, on Friday, Pfizer Inc.'s (NYSE:PFE) $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth (NYSE:WYE) got
approved by European Union antitrust authorities. It still needs Hart-Scott-Rodino approval and an OK from Wyeth stockholders. Now given the size of this healthcare deal, there are a plethora of advisers and counsel. One main character is chief financial officer Frank D'Amelio, who is leading the integration on behalf of Pfizer. The Deal Pipeline shows that in the lead for Pfizer are Tom Davidson and Alan Hartman of Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Jack Levy and Torrey Browder of Goldman, Sachs & Co. (NYSE:GS); and Doug Braunstein at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM). Barclays Capital and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) are also advising. Wyeth used Paul Taubman, Clint Gartin and Susan Huang at Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and others.
That's three deals for a total value of $79 billion. It definitely pays for these rainmakers to keep their corporate connections abuzz. -
Baz Hiralal
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