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Veteran dealmaker Paul Taubman’s advisory firm has struck a deal to buy Middle East-focused boutique deNovo Partners, as US financial firms home in on the dealmaking and capital investment opportunities coming from the oil-rich Gulf region.
New York-listed PJT Partners on Wednesday announced the acquisition of Dubai-based deNovo, which is led by Taubman’s former colleague at Morgan Stanley, May Nasrallah. The deal is still subject to regulatory approvals.
Nasrallah and Taubman have worked together for decades, and Taubman’s PJT and deNovo have had a “strategic alliance” since 2020.
“We started dating four years ago, we really got along amazingly and realised we couldn’t date forever. So we made it official and we are getting married,” Taubman told the Financial Times.
Nasrallah added: “You can call it a Catholic wedding . . . the majority of the senior management team of PJT I would call dear friends for decades.”
Taubman, one of Wall Street’s top dealmakers, has turned PJT into one of the most successful boutique investment banks since it combined with Blackstone’s investment banking unit about a decade ago.
Shares in PJT have risen by 350 per cent since then. That has boosted the firm’s so-called acquisition currency and its ability to strike deals using stock to align new joiners interests’ with the firm’s.
“This union will allow deNovo to tap a global platform and PJT can grow further locally,” said Taubman.
“The strategic alliance worked well but clients like to know that you are one firm and that you are bringing a partner of the firm rather than somebody from outside PJT into a meeting to discuss very sensitive matters,” he added.
Originally from Lebanon, Nasrallah worked at Morgan Stanley for 16 years and moved to Dubai in 2005 to open the firm’s first investment banking business in the Middle East. She left and founded her own advisory firm in 2010, and is one of the region’s best known dealmakers.
The Dubai boutique has had a busy summer. DeNovo was the sole adviser on the sale of a $360mn stake sale in retailer Brands For Less to TJX Companies, TK Maxx’s US parent company. It also advised schools chain GEMS Education on a $5bn Brookfield-led investment and new financing facility.
Nasrallah said dealmaking in the region was “busier than ever . . . we’ve got a multitude of transactions in our pipeline, it’s incredibly active . . . the appetite is there for both investing and for M&A, and I couldn’t be more excited for the region”.
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