High-profile US telecoms banker Paul Taubman is reported to be setting up his own M&A advisory firm.
The former Morgan Stanley president advised Verizon Communications on its US$130bn deal with Vodafone last year as a sole practitioner, and followed…
High-profile US telecoms banker Paul Taubman is reported to be setting up his own M&A advisory firm.
The former Morgan Stanley president advised Verizon Communications on its US$130bn deal with Vodafone last year as a sole practitioner, and followed that by working for Comcast on its US$45bn mega-merger with Time Warner Cable.
Taubman has now hired two bankers from Morgan Stanley – head of North American communications Robert Friedsam and head of North American telecoms Jim Murray – to join him, according to a CNBC report.
The firm does not have a name yet and it is unclear where it will be based. Taubman has been working out of a spare office at law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges in midtown Manhattan.
In an interview with the New York Times in April, Taubman said that he had to be judicious with what work he took on because he was just one person. He added that he was open to working in a more permanent structure in the longer term.
Taubman left Morgan Stanley in 2012 after spending his entire career with the bank. His departure followed a reported falling out with his then co-president of institutional securities Colm Kelleher.
In late 2012 Kelleher was made sole president of institutional securities and Taubman left, taking time out of banking until he got the call from Verizon.
In the past Taubman advised Comcast on its merger with NBC Universal and pharmaceutical company Wyeth’s US$66.8bn sale to Pfizer. He also brokered Mitsubishi UFG’s US$9bn investment in Morgan Stanley during the financial crisis in 2008 to keep the firm afloat.
