UBS has hired Laurence Grafstein, a veteran deal maker, as a co-head of mergers and acquisitions in the Americas, the Swiss bank announced Tuesday in an internal memorandum reviewed by DealBook.
Mr. Grafstein will be joining from Rothschild, where he previously served as a co-head of mergers and acquisitions and was most recently an executive vice chairman. Before joining Rothschild in 2009, he had worked at Lazard and Credit Suisse. (He also was part of the investor group that sold The New Republic, the American political magazine, to Chris Hughes, the onetime Facebook executive, earlier this year.)
His hiring is the latest part of UBS' effort to rebuild and expand its investment-banking franchise, after a number of senior deal makers departed. Among the high-ranking bankers whom the firm has hired in recent years is Andrea Orcel, who left Bank of America to become the Swiss firm's co-head of investment banking.
At UBS, Mr. Grafstein will work alongside the other co-head, Marc-Anthony Hourihan, and will report to Steve Cummings, the chairman of the Americas investment banking department.
Here's the full memo from Mr. Cummings:
From: Steve Cummings, Chairman, IBD Americas
Appointment: Americas M&A
I am very pleased to announce today that Laurence Grafstein has agreed to join UBS Investment Bank as a Managing Director and co-head of M&A in the Americas. He will be based in New York and will report directly to me. Larry will serve as co-head of M&A along with Marc-Anthony Hourihan.
Larry joins UBS from Rothschild Inc. where he currently serves as an Executive Vice Chairman and until recently was the co-head of M&A. Prior to Rothschild, Larry served as the co-head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications at Lazard and the global head of Telecommunications at Credit Suisse.
In his more than 20 years on Wall Street, Larry has advised on approximately $600 billion of completed advisory transactions. Recently he has advised Comverse on its pending merger with Verint and its spin-off of CNS; Sprint on the restructuring of its relationship with Clearwire; Level 3 in its merger with Global Crossing; Creative Artists Agency on its strategic partnership with TPG; the governments of Canada and Ontario on their investments in General Motors and Chrysler; Essilor on its acquisition of FGX; and Bitstream on its spin-off of MSDH and combination with Monotype.
In addition, Larry has advised a number of governments around the world. He was involved in the landmark privatizations of Telefonos de Mexico and Telstra, and has provided advice on some of the most complex and significant valuation and restructuring situations, including WorldCom MCI, Nortel, Nextel Partners, LIN, and Charter Communications.
Continuing to add to the leadership talent across the IB was identified as a high priority for the firm in 2012. The addition of Larry to our M&A team is evid ence of our progress in achieving this goal.
Please join me in welcoming Larry to UBS.
