Blackstone leaps up M&A league table
John "Studs" Studzinski, the London-based philanthropist banker, today showed why private equity giant Blackstone hired him from HSBC to be its prime dealmaker.
The appointment in 2006 signalled that Blackstone, best known for its takeovers of businesses like Madame Tussauds and Legoland, was serious about its plans to branch out from doing its own buyouts and become a major player in advising on other people's.
Today, it emerged that the globe-hopping Studzinski and his team are racing up the league tables of advisers on mergers and acquisitions.
Propelled by its role advising bailed-out insurer AIG, Blackstone ranked No. 9 for M&A advisory worldwide for the first quarter so far, when measured by value of deals, according to Thomson Reuters data. Last year, it was in 78th place.
The largest sale assignments on the AIG mission came to fruition this quarter, when in a space of just a week AIG struck deals to sell two major foreign life insurance businesses; including Prudential's giant AIA deal in Asia and MetLife's takeover of its Alico arm, for some $51 billion.
Still, Blackstone has a long way to go before it becomes a serious rival to the large banks in terms of sheer volume of dealflow. Goldman Sachs, the No. 1 M&A adviser for the quarter, advised on eight times the number of deals Blackstone did in the period.
"What I'm most proud of in terms of our advisory practice is that it is a very focused, international practice with some strong industry expertise," said Studzinski, who splits his time between Blackstone's London and New York offices, meaning frequent red-eye flights over the Atlantic, as well as to China and India.
Studzinski, who was co-head of investment banking at HSBC before he left, expects international deals to make up a bigger chunk of Blackstone's M&A fees going forward.
Where others have cut back M&A staff numbers, Blackstone has increased them. The advisory and restructuring business now has more than 120 professionals, up from 95 at the end of 2008, Studzinski said, and he's looking to selectively hire more.
