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LAZARD TO ACQUIRE LEADING AUSTRALIAN INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL ADVISORY FIRM CARNEGIE WYLIE
31 July 2007
– Next step in Lazard’s global expansion plan enhances financial advisoryand adds private equity business in Australia and Asia Pacific region –
NEW YORK and MELBOURNE, July 31, 2007 Lazard Ltd (NYSE:LAZ) announced today that it has acquired Carnegie, Wylie & Company (Carnegie Wylie), Australia’s leading independent financial advisory firm, for a combination of cash and stock, effective immediately. Carnegie Wylie, located in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, provides mergers and acquisitions advisory services in Australia and the Asia Pacific region, and has a successful and expanding private equity business.
“The acquisition of Carnegie Wylie is another important step in our five-year strategy to expand our financial advisory business by geographies, and reinforces our commitment to provide premium service to clients,” said Charles G. Ward III, President of Lazard. “Acquiring Carnegie Wylie will allow us to bring Australia’s top advisory talent into the Lazard fold, to build on our existing Australian business faster, inherit an established presence and premier brand in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and strengthen our access in the important Asia Pacific region.”
The current Sydney-based Lazard Financial Advisory team will join with Carnegie Wylie, under the leadership of Carnegie Wylie co-founder and principal John Wylie. Carnegie Wylie cofounder and principal Mark Carnegie will become CEO of Lazard’s Australian Private Equity business. Lazard Asset Management’s Australian business will continue to be managed separately, under its current leadership in Sydney.
“We are proud of our firm’s achievements in the Australian market. However, we recognise that more and more opportunities are cross-border and require the access and expertise of a premium global firm,” said John Wylie. “It is a compelling combination. With Lazard, we preserve our integrity and maintain our independent business model, which has proven successful with clients. Now we can deliver an international network.”
Lazard’s Paul Binsted and Brian Wilson, Managing Directors in Sydney said: “We admire and respect the tremendous success of Carnegie Wylie and we are delighted to be working with John Wylie and his team. We regard John as one of Australia’s outstanding coporate advisors and he has developed a superb team. This acquisition catapults the Lazard Australian business forward.”
“Having known the Lazard management for years, I respect their culture and professional approach to providing trusted, independent advice with a long-term view. Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of this deal is the potential to attract more of Australia’s best coporate advisors to advise our ever-expanding, international client base,” added Mr. Wylie.
Both Mr. Wylie and Mr. Carnegie have worked in the advisory services industry for more than twenty years in New York, the UK and Australia. Prior to co-founding Carnegie Wylie in 2000, Mr. Wylie was Head of Coporate Advisory at Credit Suisse First Boston in Australia. He has advised on a wide range of mergers and acquisitions, and equity and debt capital raisings for companies and governments, and has led teams in a number of Australia’s largest advisory transactions, including BHP Billiton’s A$9.2 billion acquisition of WMC Resources, Toll on its A$7.4 billion takeover of Patrick, Alinta on its proposed A$13.5 billion sale to a Babcock and Brown/Singapore Power consortium, the Coles Group on its pending A$22 billion sale to Wesfarmers, the A$1.4 billion sale of its Myer business to TPG and the three stages of the Telstra privatisation.
Mr. Carnegie, an entrepreneur and career investor, was a principal consultant for San Franciscobased private equity group Hellman & Friedman in Australia and Southeast Asia for almost a decade. Amongst other investments he has been a participant in groups that acquired major stakes in the Courage Pub Estate, John Fairfax Holdings, Hoyts Cinemas, Formula One Holdings, SCTV, Macquarie Radio Network and Lonely Planet Publications.
Over the past three months, Lazard has continued to invest in its Financial Advisory business for future growth in vibrant markets. The firm recently announced plans to acquire 50 percent of MBA Banco de Inversiones, extending Lazard’s reach across Central and South America, and signed a cooperation agreement with Raiffeisen Investment, the M&A advisory business for Austria’s largest banking group, strengthening its footprint across Russia, Central and Eastern Europe. In July, Lazard announced its planned acquisition of Goldsmith Agio Helms, a U.S. middle-market advisory firm, which will serve as the core of a new growth initiative focused on advising U.S. mid-sized private companies.
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