EMAIL DETAILS

Here it is with the price - $50m.


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
P Consider the environment before printing this email.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/aa8a18ba-4801-11e4-ac9f-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Evz2OfGZ

PNC buys advisory boutique Solebury


©Bloomberg
PNC Financial Services has bought independent equity advisory firm Solebury Capital, in an unusual move that gives the US regional lender a foothold in the niche but growing market for IPO advisory.

The Pittsburgh bank, run by former JPMorgan executive William Demchak, paid roughly $50m for the New York boutique. The deal comes as the pace and volume of global equity offerings has picked up to their highest levels since 2007.
The resurgence of new listings and secondary equity offerings has become a lucrative proposition for banks and independent advisers, who act as the intermediaries between corporate issuers and the banks. The independent advisory model typically is low cost and high margin because it is just advice and does not require the use of a balance sheet.

On its record-setting $25bn IPO, Alibaba hired Rothschild to act as its independent adviser and to co-ordinate the six banks leading the listing. Lazard and Moelis also compete against Rothschild and Solebury in the US.

Among its clients, Solebury counts some of the world’s biggest private equity groups, including Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR, as well as banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, according to Solebury’s website. The firm was set up in 2005 by co-chief executive officers Alan Sheriff and Ted Hatfield, both former Credit Suisse executives.

Solebury has worked on prominent IPOs such as the listings of HD Supply, Hertz, Dunkin Brands and Burlington Coat Factory, according to its website.

In Europe, Solebury has a joint venture with UK boutique STJ Advisors. That arrangement will continue following the deal. STJ has worked on IPOs this year including Saga, Card Factory and Stock Spirits, and in July was hired by Countryside ahead of a possible IPO.

It has a separate division providing assistance with investor relations to newly-listed companies.

The rise of independent advisers has drawn some criticism from bankers, who complain that their presence on a deal can overcomplicate matters and lead to worse outcomes for issuers. Tensions between banks and advisers were fuelled earlier this year in Europe by disappointing performances by a number of private-equity backed flotations.

The move into IPO advisory is a tiptoe back towards Mr Demchak’s roots in high finance. He was one of the inventors of credit derivatives at JPMorgan in the 1990s.

He moved back to his home town of Pittsburgh to take up the reins at PNC, telling the Financial Times that “he did the Wall Street thing . . . but it kind of got old”.

PNC, which confirmed it had bought Solebury, is primarily a consumer and commercial bank but it does already have an advisory division: Harris Williams, which provides mergers and acquisitions advice to middle market companies.