Lina Saigol
Lina Saigol: The surgery has started
The pink slips are coming.
That’s the word in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Bank of America’s top chiefs are preparing the integration of Merrill Lynch, armed with as much anaesthesia as possible.
The Real Deal: U’ve Been Split?
A joke on global trading floors is that UBS will soon stand for U’ve Been Split. Insiders at Europe’s second-largest bank talk about a break-up as the best solution to the spectacular $18bn writedown it has taken on mortgage securities.
Lina Saigol: Citi’s still dancing the M&A (sort of…)
Need to raise some M&A finance? Give Citigroup a call.
As other banks decline to dance with their clients, Citigroup, one of the worst hit by the credit crunch, is still doing the rhumba.
Since September,
Lina Saigol: Why buy-outs will become (even more) expensive
When the credit crunch ends, should investment banks go back to financing private equity deals as well as advising on them?The numbers suggest not. Over the past five years, the world’s biggest banks have earned almost $67bn in fees from bankrolling the buy-out funds,
Lina Saigol: Beware the strategy shift in private equity
Want to know how bad the outlook is for private equity? Just look at the number of equity stakes the groups are buying in public companies.
Since the start of the credit crunch, buy-out funds have globally acquired 364 of these minority equity stakes,
The Real Deal: Breaking the distressed debt deadlock
Would the real distressed debt funds please stand up?
It has been more than six months since the opportunists raced to raise “dislocation” funds in the hope of snapping up souring collateralised debt obligations and leveraged buy-out loans at a discount.
Lina Saigol: Merrill shows its mettle with Vale
It takes guts to sacrifice $100bn of league table credit and a sack of financing fees in this anxious market, yet Merrill Lynch is right to have done so. The bank refused to lend the Brazilian mining group Vale money to fund a possible bid for Xstrata and as a result,
The Real Deal: slim pickings for the arbs
It’s a sign of nerves when some of the world’s best-known hedge funds rush to buy into a tiny stock few have heard of. Within hours of announcing that it had received several takeover approaches, shares in Whatman,
The Real Deal: SWFs can always blame the Americans
When it comes to M&A, the Americans seem to have a misconception that the Arabs and Chinese are about to start acting like the Japanese during the 1980s.
Back then, Japanese companies descended into the US,
The Real Deal: On John Thain and ‘Goldmanising’
Contrary to whispers inside Merrill Lynch that John Thain is trying to “Goldmanise” the bank, its new chief executive appears to be doing the opposite. Regardless of how many Goldman Sachs’ operatives Mr Thain recruits,
An investment banking lexicon: The post-credit squeeze edition
Investment bank-speak is a universal language. From maximising shareholder value to full and fair offers, bankers are well versed in the art of keeping their clients happy.
But four months into the credit crisis and their words have taken on a new meaning.
Lina Saigol: Bankers’ bonuses require creativity
Keeping bankers happy with their bonuses is difficult at the best of times. And this is not the best of times.Instead of the sackloads of cash that Wall Street and the City’s finest usually look forward to,
The Real Deal: Trials of winning the wrong auction
Bankers bored of the credit squeeze are now obsessing over Guy Hands and his £4bn investment in EMI.
Word is the chief executive of buy-out group Terra Firma is in a wild panic about his impulsive acquisition and how he’ll manage to make a return on the record company he bought on the back of 43 pages of basic due diligence.
The Real Deal: Why Goldman, Morgan Stanley are on a Middle Eastern roll
Goldman Sachs has been ranked the top adviser for M&A in the Persian Gulf region, while Morgan Stanley leads the investment banking revenue league tables. What a coup.Both firms only set up shop in Dubai a few months ago,
The Real Deal – Investment banks should look beyond Rio’s bandwagon
The behaviour of some of the investment banks around BHP’s attempted £67bn ($140bn) takeover of Rio Tinto has left a bad taste in some boardrooms.
Several banks seem so keen to get a role in the proposed deal that they are prepared to risk upsetting long-standing clients in the mining sector.
The Real Deal – stalling has hurt Qatari reputation
Whether or nor the government of Qatar will finally own J Sainsbury, its reputation as a credible financial investor has been badly damaged.
The Gulf state’s investment authority has held the supermarket group,
The Real Deal – downing brown ale, Gekko-style
“Well, Sir Brian Stewart, John Dunsmore, shareholders of Scottish & Newcastle, we, the chief executives of Carlsberg and Heineken, appreciate the opportunity you are giving us to speak today.”We are not here to indulge in fantasy,
The Real Deal: End the madness, suspend the Rock
Is there a case for the Financial Services Authority to investigate the government for creating a false market in Northern Rock’s shares?
During the past three months, five-day annualised volatility of Northern Rock has been 72.1 per cent – more than three times greater than the UK banking sector at 20.2 per cent and four times greater than the whole of the FTSE 100 at 17.1 per cent.
The Real Deal: beware the banks’ UFOs
Want to get rid of your leveraged loans quickly? Don’t sweat.
All you have to do is leverage up the leverage by creating a new vehicle. Let’s call them UFOs (or Unidentified Financing Objects).
These have a standard CLO structure,
The Real Deal: The sobering message of RBS’s sky-high ABN bid
Mega mergers are almost always fuelled by three things: egos, conceit and a deep-seated need for power.So when a chief executive slaps down a premium of 50 per cent or more, shareholders can often find the rationale for pursuing an acquisition puzzling.
Lina Saigol: Four little piggies on Wall St
This little pig went mark to market.This little pig wrote it down.
This little pig ate too many loans.
And this little pig cried ‘bonus, bonus’, bonus all the way home.
If only last week’s tale of third-quarter results was so simple.
The Real Deal: A ‘creative solution’ for Northern Rock
Adam Applegarth’s desperate pleas for a rescue of Northern Rock are being directed at the UK high street banks. He needs to shout a little louder to attract wider interest.
Lending a few more mortgages and holding a few more savings deposits isn’t going to do a lot for Lloyds TSB or HSBC.
Lina Saigol: Three options for the buy-out crowd
So we know all leveraged buy-outs are sunk, but what does that actually mean?
Here’s Guy Hands’ take on it. Six weeks ago, the Terra Firma chief executive, and now proud owner of EMI, was looking at doing another deal.
Lombard: Don’t shoot the financial engineers; just make ‘em work harder
Investment banks like to think that they have human resource allocation down to a fine art. If there is money to be made in a particular area, they can throw staff into battle almost at will. Likewise,
Lina Saigol: Time for an investment banking merger
One thing the spectacular M&A boom of recent years has been lacking is investment banking deals.The last time a rash of such transactions occurred was directly after the Russian bond crisis of 1998, when many banks,
The Real Deal: The best risk arbitrage trading strategy is guts
Forget kurtosis, leptokurtosis and platykurtosis. The best risk arbitrage trading strategy to use during this credit crunch is guts.For the first time in years, merger arbs have a chance of making money.
Real Deal: Private equity adds insult to injury
The ability of private equity firms to reinvent themselves in times of crisis is astounding. Two minutes into a global credit panic, some of the world’s biggest funds are telling their investors not to worry.Why? Because some buy-out funds believe they can use their existing capital and new cash being raised to buy up the senior secured debt within their own portfolio companies.
The Real Deal: Wallets at the ready…
As the investment banking world reels from the turmoil in the credit and equity markets, an e-mail lands in the in-boxes of employees at a global investment bank, outlining how management plans to maintain its strong recent profitability.
Mandate shortage in the M&A boom
Twenty-seven rainmakers, multiple egos, and, um, just seven merger and acquisition mandates.
Perella Weinberg has come a long way since setting up an advisory and investment management business last year.
Morgan Stanley’s dance with private equity: never too late?
They put their balance sheet in, they put their balance sheet out. Talk about doing the hokey-kokey with private equity.
Under Philip Purcell’s leadership, Morgan Stanley bankers were heavily dissuaded from using the bank’s capital to make private equity investments.