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Meet the bankers making the $109 billion beer deal of the decade happen

Portia Crowe   

Meet the bankers making the $109 billion beer deal of the decade happen
Finance4 min read

budweiser celebration beer celebrate

REUTERS/Brian Blanco

There are some big winners from the possible AB InBev-SABMiller deal.

Budweiser owner AB InBev has reached an agreement with Miller maker SABMiller to combine forces in the biggest beer deal of the decade.

AB InBev raised its offer for SABMiller to £44 ($67.62) a share, valuing the brewer at £71.2 billion ($109.4 billion).

Combined, the companies would be worth an estimated $275 billion.

The means a lot of work for Wall Street firms who are advising the companies on both sides.

Lazard is the lead advisor to Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Three banks are advising SABMiller: JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and, notably, Robey Warshaw, a 3-year-old, nine-person advisory boutique.

Deutsche Bank is acting as corporate broker.

Here's what we know so far about which bankers are in on the deal:

Lazard

Alexander Hecker

Hecker is co-head of consumer and retail investment banking at independent investment bank Lazard.

He worked on the InBev-Anheuser Busch deal in 2008 in addition to the more recent Warren Buffett-3G Capital acquisition of Heinz. He has also previously worked on AB InBev's acquisition of Grupo Modelo, and AmBev's acquisition of Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana.

Hecker has a history of working with 3G Capital, the Brazilian private equity giant behind AB InBev. He also worked with the firm to take Burger King and Playboy Industries private.

Jean Greene

Green is a managing director at Lazard. She joined the firm in 1999, and has worked on deals involving Tyco, ITT, and Bon-Ton's acquisition of Saks. Before joining Lazard, Greene covered oil and gas companies at Smith Barney.

William Rucker

Rucker is the head of Lazard in London, and is known as one of UK's top advisers. In the past year alone he has worked on transactions involving UK companies Aldermore, Greene King, Quintain Estates and Polyus Gold, according to filings. He often gets involved in cross-border deals with the firm's New York arm.

Charlie Foreman

Foreman joined Lazard in 2009 from Deutsche Bank, and typically focuses on capital markets transactions. He has also been working on the initial public offering of payment processing company World Pay, which listed in the UK Tuesday morning, making it a busy few days.

Robey Warshaw

Simon Robey

Robey co-heads the London-based boutique with Simon Warshaw. Before founding his boutique advisory firm three years ago, he was head of UK investment banking and co-head of global mergers and acquisitions at Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley.

In addition to being a star dealmaker, he's also a professional standard singer, according to Financial News. He's chairman of the Royal Opera House board.

Simon Warshaw

Warshaw was the head of investment banking at UBS before joining Robey to form their boutique advisory firm.

He also worked on another giant transaction involving a US company and a UK-listed firm, working with Vodafone on the sale of its stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon. That deal was valued at $130 billion.

JPMorgan

John Muncey

Muncey is head of JPMorgan's corporate finance team in the UK. He joined the bank from UBS. He was a managing director in the European consumer team at that bank.

Muncey has a history of expertise in the liquor and beverage industry. According to the FT, his clients include liquor giant Diageo and UK brewer Scottish and Newcastle, in addition to Cadbury Schweppes, Kraft, and Germany's Tchibo.

Dwayne Lysaght

Lysaght is JPMorgan's head of UK mergers and acquisition.

He has worked on a number of deals involving North American buyers and UK targets. He advised UK insurer Brit on its sale to Canadian peer Fairfax earlier this year, and previously worked with AbbVie on its aborted deal with UK pharmaceutical company Shire.

Morgan Stanley

Henry Stewart

Stewart runs UK and Irish investment banking for Morgan Stanley. He is a specialist in the consumer sector and a longtime adviser to SABMiller.

Paul Baker

Baker is an old-school British banker who heads corporate broking for Morgan Stanley. He assumed that role in 2004. Corporate broking is a practice unique to the UK, where public companies name one or more companies as retained advisers.

Goldman Sachs

Gilberto Pozzi

London-based Pozzi is a consumer sector specialist and was promoted earlier this year from his role as head of M&A in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to global cohead of mergers and acquisitions. He joined Goldman in 1995 as an associate, and made partner in 2008. He has previously worked on deals for Unilever, Kraft Foods and Jimmy Choo.

bud light

Associated Press

Mark Sorrell

Sorrell is cohead of UK investment banking at Goldman Sachs, and is known as an excellent M&A technician. His father, Martin, is the chief executive of advertising giant WPP, while his two brothers also worked at Goldman Sachs for a period. Jonathan Sorrell is now chief financial officer at hedge fund man Group, while Robert Sorrell joined Moelis & Co in London last year.

Deutsche Bank

Ben Lawrence

Lawrence has worked on deals involving Shire, BTG, DP World, and Hammerson.

Simon Hollingsworth

Hollingsworth is a vice-president at Deutsche Bank. He joined the firm in June from Credit Suisse.

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