WFD westfield corporation

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions...

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    (The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

    By Jeffrey Goldfarb HONG KONG, Dec 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Christmas came early for foreign investment banks in Australia but the local champion found coal in its stocking. The $25 billion takeover of shopping-centre operator Westfield (WFD) by Unibail-Rodamco propels Goldman Sachs and UBS to the top of the M&A league tables Down Under. Macquarie (MQG), however, was not enlisted on the mega-merger and falls to a rare sixth place as the year comes to a close.

    A giant acquisition can often upend the rankings. Through the first 11-and-a-half months of 2017, Macquarie was comfortably ahead of the pack. It had advised on nearly $23 billion of deals, according to Thomson Reuters data. The Westfield acquisition alone is worth more than all 42 domestic transactions combined that Macquarie has been involved with this year.

    Deutsche Bank , which is helping the buyer alongside Goldman, also moves up one notch to third place. Westfield's lead consigliere, Rothschild , vaults from 19th to fourth. Even Jefferies, which has worked on only this one deal in Australia in 2017, lands itself in fifth, just ahead of Macquarie for now. Though Jefferies, owned by conglomerate Leucadia National , will lay claim to some bragging rights in next year's marketing materials, it shows the folly regarding these closely watched financial pecking orders.

    Macquarie routinely rates first or second on volume in its home market and has ranked lower than fourth there only once in the last 15 years. It may yet have some holiday cheer, though.

    Assume a 0.5 percent fee on the Westfield sale – it can be even lower for the biggest mergers – and that would imply there's about $125 million to be carved up among the five banks. Macquarie's Australian M&A haul for the year is estimated by Thomson Reuters at about $75 million, with UBS a distant second at $32 million before Unibail-Rodamco's acquisition was announced. That means even though the mall Santa may have been stingy with Macquarie, retaining its fee crown would at least be one gift.

    On Twitter http//twitter.com/jgfarb

    CONTEXT NEWS - Unibail-Rodamco, the European commercial property group, said on Dec. 12 it had agreed to buy mall operator Westfield for $25 billion, including debt.

    - Rothschild, Jefferies and UBS are advising Westfield while Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are advising Unibail-Rodamco.

    - For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on [GOLDFARB/]

    - SIGN UP FOR BREAKINGVIEWS EMAIL ALERTS: http://bit.ly/BVsubscribe

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    Press release	http//globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/12/12/1252844/0/en/UNIBAIL-RODAMCO-AND-WESTFIELD-CREATION-OF-THE-WORLD-S-PREMIER-DEVELOPER-AND-OPERATOR-OF-FLAGSHIP-SHOPPING-DESTINATIONS.html 
    

    Europe's Unibail bids $16 billion for Westfield to counter online threat BREAKINGVIEWS - Westfield's $25 bln deal is mere retail therapy

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