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Any Financial sponsor is going to be far more lucrative to a bank than a public company. I would also say that firms that use extensive and complex financing are also top targets. If you can consistently generate financing fees, I imagine that (and my bank) looks at those clients as highly favorable - almost to the point of more valuable then some of our M&A agreements.
Fair, but I should have specified M&A clients*
Agreed financing is a huge piece of it here but not quite as interested in knowing who pays the most financing fees... similarly, financial sponsors are great for propensity to do a lot of deals, but they're typically far smaller and also much worse fees. For avoidance of doubt I was angling more towards top corporates
Still Sponsors for M&A (massive sell side volume, plus the occasional buyside advisory).
To answer your real question - which are the corporates paying the most M&A fees - it's the old economy businesses getting carved into pieces. GE, GM, DuPont, Siemens, Samsung, etc.
Sponsors are by far the biggest cash cow. My bank has a few sponsors with really good relationships in my sector and we either get the first look for sell-sides or are on a short list for pitching. Brings way more deal flow then any single company can be (at least on the M&A side)
Sage Kelly's wife.
On a serious note FSG. Check out this source: https://thesource.refinitiv.com/TheSource/getfile/download/2b7c51c4-5df…. They account for the most fees of any group by FAR.
@dante-alighieri-in-coverage
based.
I don't know, I see regularly banks getting fees of +$50mm from large corporates for a single transaction and don't see sponsors doing that many deals in a single year where they pay substantial fees. Either way, question remains. Aside form financial sponsors / financing etc. just straight corporate M&A trying to gauge best clients
I work at a BB in FSG. We make over $200mm per client per year, consistently over the last few years, from our top clients.
We made $65mm on a single marquee LBO we led this year. Total fees to Wall Street were ~$350mm, including sell-side, buyside, and financing. M&A fees made up ~$110mm of that.
Medline paid even more fees.
GE. Think the original article was in FT
https://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/ges-restructuring-has-made-wall…
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