Centerview Partners’ investment banking advisory business serves some of the largest companies globally in a broad range of industries, with particular expertise in Food & Consumer Products, Financial Institutions, General Industrials, Healthcare, Media & Entertainment, Retail, and Technology & Telecommunications.  From offices in New York, London, San Francisco and Los Angeles, our professionals are dedicated to providing discreet and independent strategic and financial advice, unencumbered by institutional constraints or conflicts of interest.

The firm was founded by four senior Wall Street executives with long experience advising clients across sectors: Robert A. Pruzan (formerly Head of Global Investment Banking at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and President of Wasserstein Perella); Blair W. Effron (formerly Group Vice Chairman of UBS); Stephen S. Crawford (formerly Co-President of Morgan Stanley); and Adam D. Chinn (formerly Partner of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz).  In addition, James M. Kilts (formerly CEO of Gillette and Nabisco) joined the firm as a founding partner to head the firm’s private equity business.  Today, the advisory business is comprised of 13 partners who have held among the most senior banking positions at their prior firms including UBS, Wasserstein Perella, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.

Our partners have deep experience across the most complex public and private company situations, having advised on over $1.5 trillion of transactions over the course of their careers.  More than that, the firm’s relationship-based approach with our clients means that our focus and expertise extends far beyond traditional investment banking advisory services.  We look to add value to our clients not only in transaction situations but also during that majority of the time when their focus is on managing their existing businesses.

The firm has executed many significant transactions in recent years, including:

• Altria’s $113 billion spin-off of Philip Morris International, its $62 billion spin-off of Kraft and its $11.7 billion acquisition of UST;
• Avon’s $650 million acquisition of Silpada; 
• Capital One's $520 million acquisition of Chevy Chase Bank;
• DirecTV’s exchange of its super-voting stock for single-vote common stock;
• Facet Biotech’s $722 million sale to Abbott Labs;
• InBev's $52 billion purchase of Anheuser-Busch;
• Kraft's $21.6 billion acquisition of Cadbury and $3.7 billion sale of its frozen pizza business to Nestlé; 
• Motorola’s pending $1.4 billion sale of its wireless networks infrastructure assets to Nokia Siemens Networks;
• NBTY’s pending $3.8 billion sale to Carlyle Group;
• News Corp's $5.6 billion purchase of Dow Jones;
• OSI Pharmaceuticals’ $4.0 billion sale to Astellas Pharma; and 
• PepsiCo's $21 billion acquisitions of its two major bottlers

The team has deep expertise with complex M&A execution across a wide range of roles and structures.  In addition, Centerview Partners actively works with management teams and Boards of Directors on special situations, such as defense assignments, fairness opinions, special committee assignments and proxy contests.

Blair Effron, Robert Pruzan and Tony Kim have extensive experience across a range of industries, particularly with consumer-oriented companies, including those in the Food & Beverage, Household & Personal Care, Retail and Luxury Goods sectors, as well as with general industrial companies.

Steve Crawford and Adam Chinn, leveraging broad transactional and operational experience as well as deep industry relationships, lead the firm’s Financial Institutions advisory practice.

David Handler, David St. Jean and Bryan Spielman, who lead Centerview's Technology & Telecommunications advisory practice, have significant sector knowledge and extensive experience advising the global technology and telecom industries.

Alan Hartman, Richard Girling and Mark Robinson lead the firm's Healthcare practice, and have advised on major transactions across geographies and industry sectors.

David Cohen brings more than 20 years of investment banking and private equity experience and leads the firm’s global Industrials and Financial Sponsor advisory practices.

Skip Paul brings more than 30 years of transactional and operational experience as a senior advisor to the firm’s Media and Entertainment practice.

Robert Rubin, counselor at Centerview, has years of deep experience in finance and public policy from his time in numerous leadership positions including having served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury and as Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs.

Since its founding in 2006, Centerview has advised on more than $350 billion in transactions, making it one of the most successful new financial institutions and positioning the firm as one of the leading boutique investment banks in the industry.