Awards Criteria
The selection procedure is a three stage process designed to select a winner in the most objective, comprehensive and equitable way. The Awards are being held at the year end to ensure that the majority of deals announced in 2008 are included for consideration.
Stage 1
Mergermarket M&A deal data - an industry standard source for advisory league tables - has been used to generate shortlists for the award categories below. Financial advisors, law firms and private equity houses have been shortlisted according to both the total volume and total value of announced deals they have worked on in 2008. For financial advisors, and private equity houses we have excluded lapsed and withdrawn deals.
Stage 2
Shortlisted organizations are then invited to submit a tiebreaker of 300 words maximum for each nominated award outlining why they qualify to win.
Stage 3
The independent judging panel of M&A experts will be provided with details of all the relevant deals each of the shortlisted firms have worked on, as well as the tiebreaker submissions, and will thrash out the winner for each category. The judges have been asked to assess the following in their considerations:
- The strategic nature of the deals worked on
- The complexity of the deals worked on, including but not limited to the deals’ cross-border/jurisdictional nature, their structure and negotiation to completion
- The financing requirements of the deal
- The groundbreaking or novel nature of the deals
These judges include Editors from the FT and Mergermarket, as well as senior respected business figures from the advisory, and private equity worlds. A vote will be conducted to determine the winner of each award.
These criteria will allow the Awards to underline the importance of the number and sizes of transactions announced, as well as recognize particular deals and companies within a wider geographic or market context. Our aim is to establish a pre-eminent awards event for M&A in the Americas - based on principles of veracity, accuracy and insight.
