Wednesday November 4, 04:50 AM

Evercore climbs league table with Burlington deal

By Megan Davies

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boutique M&A adviser Evercore has climbed up the league tables by landing the high profile job of advising Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp on its $26 billion takeover.

Evercore, which along with Goldman Sachs advised Burlington, moved from number 12 to 10 in the worldwide financial advisory rankings, according to Thomson Reuters data.

It jumped from No. 6 to No. 4 in the U.S. target financial advisory rankings, muscling past Citi and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. It now sits behind the top three U.S. target advisers -- Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, according to Thomson Reuters data.

As well as the status, winning a top assignment is a sweet payday for M&A advisors.

Evercore and Goldman Sachs are estimated to scoop $50 million to $55 million in fees from the deal between them, according to data from Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting.

Evercore, founded in 1996 by former Lehman Brothers and Blackstone Group banker Roger Altman, has been particularly active in gaining M&A advisory work this year.

It advised the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Affiliated Computer Services on its pending sale to Xerox and advised Wyeth on its $68 billion union with Pfizer.

The team which worked on Burlington included Altman himself, who spent 20 years as an investment banker for Lehman Brothers and Blackstone. Altman was also a former Treasury official with the Carter and Clinton administrations.

It also shows it can pay to lure bankers from bigger rivals. Leading the deal alongside Altman was senior managing director George Ackert, who joined Evercore in February from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was global head of transportation and infrastructure.

Boutique firms have taken advantage of worries about pay and other restrictions at top investment banks to woo away key bankers, increasing the pace of a trend that was apparent even before last year's financial crisis.

However, the assignment didn't move Goldman Sachs' position, which remains at No. 2. The Goldman bankers leading the deal were Marc Nachmann and Dusty Philip.

No banking advisors were listed on the Burlington press release for Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, which is buying the railroad company. Berkshire was not immediately available for comment on whether it used banking advisers.

Legal advisers on the deal on the Burlington side were New York-based Cravath Swaine & Moore, while Berkshire Hathaway used California-based law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.

Deal volume for November, at $44.5 billion, has already surpassed the $28.6 billion volume for all of October, when calculating U.S. targets, Thomson Reuters data shows.

That includes Stanley Works' deal on Monday to buy rival toolmaker Black & Decker Corp for $3.46 billion stock.

(Additional reporting by Michael Erman and Lilla Zuill in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Gunna Dickson)