ADVISERS
RICHARD GIRLING
CENTERVIEW PARTNERS
WALGREENS’ purchase of Alliance Boots involved two very different firms: Goldman Sachs and Centerview Partners.
On this side of the Atlantic it represents an impressive coup for Centerview’s Richard Girling, a sector specialist who holds an MA in biochemistry from Oxford University. He helped set up Merrill Lynch’s European healthcare business in the late 1990s and advised Alliance Unichem on its merger with Boots before returning the following year to advise on its private equity buyout. Yesterday he told City A.M.: “Alliance stuck with the people that helped them build the company up. I’m very proud that this was going on for several months and there were no leaks.”
Goldman Sachs advised Walgreens, with a team that included Stephan Feldgoise, Gene Sykes, Mark Sorrell, John Gilbertson and Andre Kelleners. It also mandated Lazard.
Walgreens’s legal advisers were Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Allen & Overy, while Alliance Boots turned to Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Brunswick led the PR for Walgreens, while RLM Finsbury represented Alliance Boots.