The Yahoo-Verizon deal is huge news for boutique banks
The hotly-anticipated deal is one that every firm will have been scrambling to get a piece of. In the end, the boutique firms LionTree Advisors, Allen & Company, Guggenheim Securities, and PJT Partners were the big winners.
The first three firms, along with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, are advising Verizon. PJT Partners, along with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, advised Yahoo.
Each side could take home up to $45 million in advisory fees to split, according to the consultant Freeman & Co.
LionTree - a tech, media, and telecom-focused boutique - was launched in 2012 by the former UBS banker Aryeh Bourkoff. It recently advised the cable and satellite TV network Starz on its $4.4 billion sale to Lionsgate, and last year advised Charter Communications on its $78 billion deal for Time Warner Cable. It employs fewer than 50 people, according to Bloomberg.
Allen & Co., a secretive San Francisco-based bank, has advised on deals including the Time Warner Cable-Charter Communications deal, PayPal's spinoff from eBay, and Microsoft's $26 billion deal for LinkedIn.
Guggenheim was founded in 1999 and his since grown to employ about 2,500 people throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. It recently advised St. Jude Medical on its $25 billion sale to Abbott Labs. It has also advised on Pfizer's deal for Allergan, Verizon's stake buyback from Vodafone, and the Time Warner Cable-Charter transaction.
PJT Partners, which also advised on the Lionsgate-Starz deal, is the result of a combination of PJT Capital, an advisory firm launched by former Morgan Stanley dealmaker Paul J. Taubman, and Blackstone's financial and strategic advisory businesses. It now employs about 350 people.