Evercore Acquires ISI Brokerage; Will Merge With Own Brokerage Operations

Bloomberg published an article late Friday, August 1st, claiming that Evercore Partners Inc. (NYSE:EVR) had finalized a deal to acquire International Strategy & Investment Group, a well-known research brokerage, for around $440 million.

Sources with knowledge of the deal told Bloomberg Evercore plans to merge ISI with its own brokerage operations. ISI founder Ed Hyman will stay on as chairman of the new unit for at least five years.

Terms of the deal

The sources also said Evercore had agreed to pay up to 8 million of its shares as a part of the deal, which values ISI at well over $400 million, based on Evercore’s current $50 stock price.

However, Evercore Partners Inc. (NYSE:EVR) is only paying 30% of the sale price at deal closing, with the remainder of the funds to be paid over the next five years if the combined firm meets targets. The Bloomberg report also mentioned the deal is likely to be officially announced on Monday.

Evercore plans to merge ISI with its own brokerage subsidiary

Evercore Partners Inc. (NYSE:EVR) intends to merge ISI with its own subsidiary brokerage unit in order to maximize operational synergies.

The two brokerage units together produce around $230 million in earnings and have a total of 300 employees. according to Bloomberg’s inside sources. Furthermore, in the ballpark of 15-20% of the employees are likely to lose their jobs as positional redundancies are eliminated.

Evercore maturing into complete investment bank

Analysts note that Evercore Partners Inc. (NYSE:EVR), under chairman Roger Altman and CEO Ralph Schlosstein, has grown from a mid-size mergers and acquisitions boutique into a financial institution offering a broad range of investment banking services.

Back in June, Robert Walsh, Evercore’s CFO, pointed out that the firm had already significantly increased the size of its research division, mainly in a search for more revenues from debt and equity offerings.

“We’ve grown the number of companies we cover, we’ve grown the number of clients we served, and that’s been instrumental in increasing the number and the value of the underwritings that we participate in,” he said.

Walsh also acknowledged that it’s been a bit of a bumpy road over the last year or so. “It’s been a tough market to do that, certainly much tougher than we had envisioned when we launched it.”