The Wall Street firms that advised Alcoa on a bunch of acquisitions are now advising on its split

The aluminum giant Alcoa announced Monday that it is splitting itself into two public companies.

One company, titled Upstream Company, will focus on bauxite mining, alumina refining and aluminium production. It will have around 17,000 employees and revenues of arond $13 billion.

The second, titled Value-Add company, will focus on selling multi-material products, and have around 43,000 staff and revenues of $14.5 billion.

The commodities giant has called Morgan Stanley and Greenhill & Co. to advise on the split.

The two previously advised Alcoa on a heap of transactions. Last year they worked on Alcoa's $2.85 billion deal for jet engine component company Firth Rixson.

In December Greenhill advised Alcoa on a deal for TITAL, a German manufacturer of aluminium and titanium castings.

In March this year, Morgan Stanley and Greenhill advised Alcoa on the acquisition of RTI International Metals, which produces and supplies titanium mill products, for $1.5 billion.

Sum of the parts

Morgan Stanley equity analysts put out a note September 16 assessing the value of Alcoa's different business segments, pegging a valuation for each of them. The note said that the sum of the parts were worth much more than what the company is trading for right now. Alcoa shares traded up around 2% in early trading Monday following the news of the split.

Alcoa would not be the first company to embark on a series of transactions only then to work on a potential split.

Pharmaceutical giant Allergan, which was created through a series of deals including a giant merger with Actavis, was reported in July to be considering splitting itself into two.