advisers vodafone and Cable & Wireless worldwide
UBS
Vodafone has put its long-standing team at UBS, headed by global co-head of investment banking Simon Warshaw, on the case to guide it through its acquisition of CWW.
Oxford-educated Warshaw joined the Swiss bank in 1986 and has under his belt the former positions of head of EMEA investment banking, joint head of UK investment banking and global head of UBS’ media investment banking arm.
Vodafone’s advisory team at UBS includes Jonathan Rowley, joint head of mergers and acquisitions EMEA, Mark Lewisohn, global head of TMT, and Christian Lesueur, head of EMEA media and telecoms investment banking.
The UBS squad also led the telecoms giant through its $5.9bn merger of Vodafone Australia with Hutchison 3G Australia in 2009.
Batting on the Cable & Wireless Worldwide side is a Barclays and Rothschild hybrid, led by Mark Warham and Nigel Higgins respectively.
Warham, who formerly worked for 3i, Schroders and Morgan Stanley, is co-head of Barclays Capital’s EMEA mergers and acquisitions division. He served as director general of the Takeover Panel in 2006 and 2007.
Higgins has been chief executive of Rothschild Group for two years and is also co-head of the bank’s global financial advisory division. He formerly served as Rothschild’s head of UK investment banking and co-head of the bank’s European investment banking activities.
CWW is also working with Jack Callaway and Stuart Ord from BarCap and Richard Murley and Jeremy Boardman from Rothschild.
Vodafone’s brokers are Citi and JP Morgan Cazenove, while Deutsche Bank and Jefferies Hoare Govett are joint corporate brokers to CWW, marking Hoare Govett’s first sizeable M&A job since being bought by Jefferies in February. Chris Zeal, who was with Hoare Govett in its RBS days, told City A.M., “The joy of Jefferies is to be with people who are equity focussed. This is the first large M&A transaction within the Jefferies enterprise and it’s good that we’re this active.”
On the legal side, Iain Fenn and Clodagh Hayes of Linklaters – which also advised on the Glencore/Xstrata deal – are acting for Vodafone. CWW’s lawyers are Chris Haynes and James Palmer at Herbert Smith. Lauren Davidson