Bud deal a boost for banks in deal drought

By Megan Davies and Jessica Hall

NEW YORK/PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The $52 billion (26 billion pound) takeover deal for Anheuser-Busch Cos Inc. (BUD.N) is a nice boost for M&A bankers, who have been suffering from a sharp downturn in deal volume this year.

The takeover ranks as the largest all-cash transaction, eclipsing AT&T's (T.N) 2004 takeover of Cingular Wireless for $41 billion.

Banks typically take a total 1 percent to 2 percent advisory fee from deals. In a multibillion-dollar deal the percentage typically drops to the lower end of the scale.

With M&A volume about 40 percent lower than a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data, advising on the Anhueser-Busch deal was a welcome payout for the banks but it did not change the top reaches of the world mergers and acquisitions rankings, dominated by the usual suspects.

The banks advising Anheuser-Busch on the deal were top-ranked Goldman Sachs (GS.N), second-ranked Citigroup Global Capital Markets (C.N) and Moelis & Co.

Advising the buyer, Belgium-based InBev NV INTB.BR, were third-ranked JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Lazard Ltd (LAZ.N), Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) and BNP Paribas SA (BNPP.PA).

The deal was a particular boost for Lazard, pushing it up the M&A worldwide advisory rankings to No. 10 from 12 last year, according to Thomson Reuters data. The deal ranks as Lazard's fifth-biggest financial advisory assignment.

It was also a boost for Moelis & Co, pushing it back into the top 15.