Sticking with Murdoch costs Goldman year’s biggest deal
New York — It has been six years since Goldman Sachs Group, a perennial number one in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) league tables, did not feature as an adviser on the year’s biggest deal. But sticking with Rupert Murdoch over Bugs Bunny just cost it this year’s biggest deal. Goldman missed out on an advisory role on telecom giant AT&T’s deal to buy Time Warner for $85.4bn because of its perceived conflict stemming from advising media mogul Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox two years ago, when it made a failed bid for Time Warner. The media conglomerate’s franchises range from CNN and HBO to Harry Potter films, hit TV show "The Big Bang Theory" and Bugs Bunny. The code name for Time Warner in deal talks was "Rabbit," perhaps an homage to Warner Brothers’ carrot-chewing, wise-talking cartoon character. As a result, investment banking rival Morgan Stanley is now number one in the US merger advisory rankings with $435.3bn in announced deals, about $435m ahead of Goldman, which ha...
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