And the award for best supporting actor in a dramatic auction, $45 billion and above, goes to...
Well, based on a major article coming out in The Deal's Corporate Dealmaker on Monday, the contest is probably between Wayne Watts, senior vice president and head M&A guy at SBC (now AT&T, of
course) and Wachtell Lipton's Steve Rosenblum. Watts, leading the deal team for Cingular, gets a great scene where he talks tough on antitrust issues. But it's Rosenblum who (following Arun Sarin's call late in the evening of February 16, 2004 to say Vodafone needs more time) comes racing up the stairs in Wachtell's offices to tell the AT&T Wireless board about Cingular's $15-a-share bid, which finally takes the prize.
The article-a first-person account of the biggest cash transaction in history-was written by Josh King, a former corp dev vp at AT&T Wireless now working in business development at Craig McCaw's Clearwire. King also writes the excellent Corporate Tool blog. —Kenneth Klee
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