By Kevin McCauley
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher is guiding Potash Corp. as it fends off a $39B hostile takeover offer by Australia’s BHP Billiton.
Canada’s Potash, the world’s largest fertilizer company, dismisses the offer as “grossly inadequate.”
Wall Street though cheers the move by BHPB, the globe’s biggest mining company. The Wall Street Journal is head cheerleader, featuring the transaction as it lede story with the headline "A $39B Food Fight." It crows that the Street has “finally found itself a whale of a deal."
As the biggest proposed M&A this year, transaction fees are expected to hit $200M.
For its defense, Potash has lined up Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets as well as lawyers Jones Day and Stikeman Elliott. BHPB’s team includes Barclays Capital, J.P. Morgan Securities, TD Securities, Banco Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland and BNP Paribas with lawyers from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Blake, Cassels & Graydon.
Potash's JFWBK team includes managing directors Andrew Siegel, Jamie Moser and Eric Brielmann. |