Investment Bank of the Year

Merrill Lynch & Co. Merrill Lynch scored high on a series of quantitative and qualitative criteria to win M&A’s recognition as Investment Bank of the Year for 2000. Merrill took part in two of the largest deals of the year – the $203 billion acquisition of Germany’s Mannesmann by U.K.-based Vodafone AirTouch and the $106 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner to create AOL Time Warner. Beyond those pinnacles, Merrill beat out a distinguished group of competing banks by displaying a broad diversity of dealmaking skills. Merrill advised on 235 mergers and acquisitions worth a total of nearly $853 billion during 2000. The list was spiced by a series of cross-border transactions, several of which, like Vodafone-Mannesmann, did not include an American company. Other “offshore” assignments included the acquisition by Total Fina (Belgium) of Elf Aquitaine (France) in oil, two major Japanese banking mergers – Fuji Bank and Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, and Sanwa Bank and Tokai Bank – Vivendi’s (France) acquisition of Canada-based Seagram in media and entertainment, and the purchase of Aerospatiale Matra by DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (Germany). In cross-border transactions involving American companies, Merrill advised ING Groep of the Netherlands in purchasing the financial services and international businesses of Aetna, and Bestfoods on its sale to the British-Dutch Unilever group. Merrill’s dealmaking breadth ranged from the high-tech world to basic industry, with roles in deals in telecommunications, utilities, pharmaceuticals, financial services, electronics, publishing, aluminum, and paper, among other fields. Merrill bankers advised such leading acquirers as Pfizer in buying Warner-Lambert – one of the key consolidations in the pharmaceuticals field; AT&T in its acquisition of cable TV giant MediaOne; and Tribune Co. in buying the Times Mirror publishing empire. On the sell side, advice was provided for Reynolds Metals, which was acquired by Alcoa in a deal linking the two largest players in aluminum; General Instrument, which was bought by Motorola; and Consolidated Natural Gas, which was acquired by Dominion Resources.