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Published October 30, 2009 at 11:30 AM
In case you haven't heard -- or seen trumpeted on our home page or in the magazine -- 2009 marks The Deal LLC's 10th year. We've been celebrating since January with our ongoing Decade of The Deal project. And the current issue of The Deal magazine offers analysis on the dramatic events that have defined the M&A market since 1999.
Of particular interest to corporate dealmakers is the story Nice work if you can get it. In it, Vipal Monga and I explore how the relationship between investment bankers and their corporate clients has evolved. The bankers and corporate executives interviewed for the story agreed that corporations have gotten better at doing deals. They've built in-house M&A teams that are as capable as any investment banking team at identifying targets, gathering market intelligence and conducting due diligence.
"The assumption that you need a banker on every deal is going away," says Michael Frankel, senior vice president of business development and M&A for LexisNexis, a provider of work flow and risk management services. "It's no longer enough for a banker to say 'Here's how to do the deal.' Bankers are being asked to demonstrate value more often."
These days that comes in the form of specialized industry knowledge, debt restructuring, tax structuring, sophisticated analytics and insight into a target's management or board. "Clients want more color around the name, not the name itself," says Chris Hite, co-head of global health care at Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C). And certainly there's a premium on the capital markets expertise a banker can provide.
Says Rob Kindler, head of global M&A at Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS):
"The investment bank can bring a perspective on what the rating agencies are going to do on the debt side, how the debt is going to trade, what the capital markets reaction is going to be. [That] is very difficult to get in-house expertise on because you're just focused on your own company, rather than the whole market." (See video).
The Apollo Global Management partner talks LPs and GPs with The Deal Pipeline at the 18th annual Wharton Private Equity & Venture Capital Conference. More video
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In case you haven't heard -- or seen trumpeted on our home page or in the magazine -- 2009 marks The Deal LLC's 10th year. We've been celebrating since January with our ongoing Decade of The Deal project. And the current issue of The Deal magazine offers analysis on the dramatic events that have defined the M&A market since 1999. 
