Dealmakers at The Savoy for M&A knees up
TO The Savoy on Wednesday evening, for one of the final awards dos in The Capitalist’s diary before the Square Mile goes into hibernation for the festive period.
The occasion this week was the Mergermarket European M&A Awards 2012, hosted by Daily Politics presenter and Spectator chairman Andrew Neil.
The annual ceremony awards the biggest dealmakers from Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
This year the big winners were KKR, which won private equity deal of the year for its sale of Alliance Boots, and Direct Line, which took IPO of the year.
Goldman Sachs was named financial adviser of the year, Linklaters as private equity legal adviser of the year, and the merger of Glencore and Xstrata was named M&A deal of the year.
The only remaining deal to be done at the end of the evening was negotiating entry to a suitably nearby nightclub. It is Christmas, after all.