Thursday was a huge day for deal makers — especially those at smaller boutique shops.
Four big transactions were announced, including Abbott Labs' $25 billion deal for St. Jude Medical, AbbVie's $5.8 billion deal for Stemcentrx, Sanofi's unsolicited $9.3 billion bid for Medivation, and NBCUniversal's $3.8 billion deal for DreamWorks.
Among the banks that can expect big winnings in fees are boutiques Evercore, Guggenheim Securities, and Centerview Partners.
Morgan Stanley also had a big day, advising both Stemcentrx and Sanofi.
Altogether, Wall Street banks will bring in up to $342 million in fees for advising and arranging financing on Thursday's deals, according to the consultant Freeman & Co.
Here's the fee breakdown from Freeman:
Abbott Labs — St. Jude Medical
- Buy-side: $35-45 million in advisory fees to Evercore and Bank of America, plus $50-75 million to Bank of America Merrill Lynch for arranging a $17 billion bridge loan
- Sell-side: $40-50 million in advisory fees to Guggenheim Securities
AbbVie — Stemcentrx
- Buy-side: $20-25 million to advisers
- Sell-side: $25-30 million to Morgan Stanley
Sanofi — Medivation
- Buy-side: $30-35 million to Morgan Stanley
- Sell-side: $32-37 million to Evercore and JPMorgan
NBCUniversal — DreamWorks
- Buy-side: $15-20 million to advisers
- DreamWorks: $20-25 million to Centerview Partners
Boutique banks have been taking big deals from their larger rivals in the last couple of years. Three boutiques — Evercore, Centerview, and Moelis — ranked in the top 15 banks for global M&A revenue in the first quarter.
Moelis, for its part, just reported a killer first quarter, with record revenues, up 27% from last year.
Evercore lists around 80 senior managing directors (MD) in corporate advisory globally on its website. At Centerview, meanwhile, there are 30 partners listed on the website.
