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Tuesday February 08, 07:36
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Goldman, Merrill and UBS among Top Three Merger Advisors
(by Mark Riley)
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Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG joined perennial leader Goldman Group
Inc. among the top three merger advisers in the hottest US takeover
market since 2000.
Merrill Lynch, the largest securities firm with equity capital of about
$115 billion, is among the three leading merger advisers in the US for
the first time since 2001. It climbed to No.2 from No.6 in announced US
mergers last year. UBS, Europe’s largest bank, has never been included
in the big three before and now it rose to No.3 from No.9 in 2004.
New York-based Goldman, the third-largest securities firm, may add 3
cents a share to 2005 for handling the $57 billion sale of Gillette and
MetLife’s $11.5 billion takeover of Citigroup’s Travelers unit, Sanford
C. Bernstein & Co. Analyst Brad Hintz said. Merrill may add 2 cents to
earnings contributed by its merger work.
Goldman’s fees from providing merger advice came to $1.73 billion in
2004, Merrill’s fees amounted to $679 million and UBS will report its
2004 earnings tomorrow.
Why wasn’t Citigroup, the world’s second-largest security firm, hired
to work on Gillette’s sale? “CEOs want to work with people they are
comfortable with,” Roy Smith, a finance professor at New York University
said. “Increasingly, however, they want bankers who really know their
businesses and that has given rise to the importance of special industry
groups.” That influenced the decision of Gillette Chief Executive
Officer James Kilts to hire UBS’s Blair Effron to sell the consumer-products
company.
UBS overtook Citigroup getting to the second place in consumer deals by
getting the Gillette assignment. Merrill was ahead of both Citigroup
and Morgan Stanley to rank third. Goldman, with $302 billion in consumer
deals in five years, remains on the first place.
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