Qualcomm Intel Deal
Curious to hear who the community thinks the advisors behind the deal are… will the deal get approved?
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MS Menlo and GS TMT. Already got reported
This is an uphill battle. We don’t know if Intel wants to sell and more importantly there are huge antitrust and political implications. A $100bn deal like this will take years to get done if so. It will require China approval and there’s no way China will say ok to letting the US strengthen their position against them in such a politically sensitive industry (semis)
Can you expand on the China point? How have similar transactions played out in the past in sensitive sectors?
Pls see NXP / Qualcomm
Seems like a classic Qatalyst deal
Qatalyst not involved. They're not as active in mega-deals ($40bn+ EV) as you'd think, and this acquisition will likely be valued at $130bn+ in EV.
MS Menlo / GS TMT are the go-to bankers for this type of deal.
VP @ GS/MS, congratulations on the mandate. But don’t act like you’re better than Qatalyst now.. Both GS and MS have been getting blown out of the water on $5Bn+ deals by Q the last few years.
These 40+ mega deals are so uncommon; there is not enough history to isolate a “go-to bank” for these.
I work at an EB that doesn't usually compete with MS/Q/GS but thought it's interesting to do a quick screen for the list of all recent tech M&A deals valued near or above $40Bn and their respective advisors:
- VMware / Broadcom ($92Bn): MS / Citi buy-side, GS / JPM sell-side
- Microsoft / Activision ($68Bn): GS buy-side, MS / Allen sell-side
- Twitter / Elon Musk ($44Bn): MS buy-side, GS/JPM sell-side
- Xilinx / AMD ($50Bn): CS/DBO buy-side, MS sell-side
- EMC / Dell ($67Bn): JPM buy-side, MS sell-side
- Red Hat / IBM ($36Bn): GS / LZD buy-side, MS sell-side
- [Blocked] Qualcomm / Broadcom ($130Bn): MS / Citi / JPM buy-side, GS / EVR / CVP sell-side
- [Pending??] Intel / Qualcomm ($120Bn??): EVR buy-side, MS / GS sell-side
So it does seems like (oddly) Qatalyst wasn't involved on any of these deals, either the buy-side or the sell-side.
On the other hand, MS Menlo advised on all 8 of the 8 mega-deals (wow), while GS was on 6 of the 8 deals.
Obviously like you said, these megadeals happen very rarely, and Q has been successful playing in their part of the market so they can care less about hunting for these whales. However, this list does show a trend of absolute domination by MS Menlo, and GS to a lesser extend, in the tech M&A mega-deal space.
This is actually an insane list to look at, and numbers don't lie.
Always knew that MS Menlo dominates in large-cap tech M&A but didn't know they have basically a monopoly in the $40bn+ mega deal territory.
Q is a good firm nonetheless but still a bit shocked that they are on 0 of the 8 largest tech m&a deals of this past decade.
Seems like these are the firms that are most involved on these types of deals:
1. MS: 8 of 8
2. GS: 6 of 8
3. JPM: 4 of 8
4. Citi: 2 of 8
5. Evercore: 2 of 8
6. Lazard: 1 of 8
7. Centerview: 1 of 8
Not sure why so much pushback from others. Makes sense that Qatalyst isn’t as involved with larger deals as financing to some extent will be involved, and it’s easier to work with a bank that can provide both financing and advisory, vs. one that only provides advisory.
Might be true if you're the buy-side advisor, but on the sell-side it's pure advisory focused and it doesn't matter if you can provide financing, regardless of deal size.
As the list above shows, MS Menlo was the sell-side advisor for 5 of the 8 mega deals they advised on. They most definitely didn't get hired on the sell side for these situations just because they can provide financing.
On the other hand, you see boutiques like Evercore / Lazard / Centerview on these deals (on the buy-side too), even though they were only on 1-2 of the 8 deals. You think these boutiques got hired on a mega deal because they can provide financing?
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