A well-known financier—cough, Lloyd Blankfein, cough—once said, “The Sunday Styles’ ‘Weddings and Celebrations’ section exists solely to make people feel bad about themselves. If you’re unwed—it’s a reminder that you probably never will be; for the single women, it reinforces the fact that they will die alone, save for their cats and the indelible crows feet caused by years of putting careers before relationships. For the men, it’s a splash of cold water on their no-longer-youthful faces that no one wants an aging bachelor—even Jay McInerney is all, ‘I’d argue that having three divorces and four wives to my name is a small price to pay in exchange for being off that bitch of a singles market.’ And if you’re reading ‘W&C’ and are wearing the tiniest handcuff known to mankind? Well, that’s just the cruelest punishment of all. You know what these people are in for.” (Which is part of the reason people stopped inviting him to their weddings and bar mitzvahs– who needs that kind of negativity?)
With that said, we here at Dealbreaker are always up for trivializing the pain of others, and noticed some time ago the considerable Venn Diagram overlap between the unfortunate souls “married last evening at the Tribeca Rooftop” and the same people having jobs in the industry of which we cover. Thus spake: The Big Rip Off. Every Monday, we’ll review the Times wedding announcements that involve professionals, assign them “market value,” based on experience, firm, any other occupational variables we see fit, and pay tribute to those who came before us.
Tara Purohit and Riad Abrahams
Bride:
MBA (-1) from Harvard (+2)
Consultant (-1) at the Bridgespan Group (-1), a consulting firm in Boston (-1) for nonprofit organizations (-1)
Pre-merger valuation: -3 points
Bridegroom:
MBA (-1) from Harvard (+2)
Managing Director (+3) of Maverick Capital (+1), a hedge fund in NY, until last October
Founded (+2) a new investment firm (this is too ambiguous for a value—leave your best guess) in NY called Black(+3)swan(-5) Partners
Pre-merger valuation: 5 points
Post merger valuation: 2 points
Notes: Definitely not a merger of equals. Merger is significantly dilutive to Abrahams, though the bride’s probably a very kind, loving, and non-judgmental person—considering “BS Partners,” she’d have to be.
Mergers & Acquisitions
We hear that Time, Inc. is feeling crunched for time in its attempt to get a few magazine deals signed up by year end. In September, Time announced plans to sell several titles. Our source tells us that Time has been meeting with prospective buyers this week and will continue meetings next week. But, the source says, executives at the magazine and their bankers are now pushing to get deals done between Thanskgiving and Christmas. Time apparentoy doesn’t want to wait until 2007 to start signing up deals, fearing that dealmakers and investment bankers might be unmotivated to quickly close sales early in the first quarter of the new year.
Underneath the financial maneuvers and corporate wrangling in Lakshmi Mittal’s bid to have his Mittal Steel purchase Arcelor, the world’s second-biggest steelmaker, a smaller, more human and perhaps almost biblical battle between two brothers.
Michael Zaoui and his younger brother Yoel are both successful investment bankers who lead the European investment banking divisions of different banks. Michael leads at Merrill Lynch. Yoel at Goldman Sachs. Both were born in Morocco, lived for a time in Italy and educated at elite French schools. Both are French nationals.
The Mittal takeover of Arcelor saw them pitted against each other. At Merrill, Michael was in charge, with Michel Antakly, of Morgan Stanley’s efforts on behalf of Arcelor, which sought to defend itself against Mittal’s advances. At Goldman, Yoel helped arrange Mittal’s attack.
We’re still awaiting word about exactly how Yoel is celebrating this triumph over his older brother. But we’re told that their last name, Zaoui, is indeed pronounced “Zowie!”
BAA, the largest airport owner in the world, shot down a bid from a team headed up by Goldman Sach, opting instead to accept a $19.3 billion offer from the Spanish company Grupo Ferrovial. The Goldman led group has ten days to submit a new bid.
A key difference between the bids, which both offer shareholders a dividend of 15.25 pernce, is that the Ferrovial investors, advised by Citigroup, already have regulatory approval for the takeover. The Goldman bid is presumably contingent on getting such approval. Rothschild Group and UBS are advising BAA.
It also appears that Goldman may never have made a formal offer, according to an analyst quoted in Bloomberg.
“Goldman have said they’ve got the money, but haven’t actually made an offer,” said Andy Murphy, an analyst in London at Panmure U.K., with a “hold” rating on the stock. “Goldman will have to really go for it and offer about 10 pounds.”
Update: This story indicates the the Goldman group did submit a full bid.
Goldman’s revised bid is due Friday, June 16th. So what does this mean for the real world? And by “real world” we mea, of course, the chance of getting out of the office if you are working on the deal.
Goldman bankers=cancel your weekend plans.
Citigroup=also totally screwed; preparing counter-bids.
Rothschild/UBS=pray Goldman doesn’t get its bid in until after this weekend but well before next weekend.
Everyone’s lawyers=associates absolutely screwed no matter what; partners watching billable hours meters ticking ever higher.
BAA Accepts 10.1 Bln-Pound Ferrovial Bid Over Goldman [Bloomberg]
As we’ve mentioned before, we occasionally plug “banker” in the search box on Craigslist just to see if anything interesting comes up. Generally, results fall in one of two categories: “randy banker seeks young hot thing for no-strings relationship, willing to pay” or “young hot thing seeks randy banker to finance exorbitant lifestyle, willing to do whatever randy banker wants.” In the latter category, the young woman to the left posts the following: “if you are an m&a banker, hopefully on the young side ie (22-25), i need a favor and in return, i’ll make your head spin.” Which begs the question: why an M&A guy specifically? (We realize that reliably good transaction advice is in short supply, but…) Why not a nice LBO guy? Or a hedge fund guy? We hear they’re hot (in one sense of the word.)
M&A Bankers W4M (22) [Craigslist]
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