World's best independent investment bank 2018: Lazard

Lazard sets the standard to which all those more recently established independent investment banks seeking to break out of the ranks of boutiques and build truly global firms – like Evercore and Moelis & Co – aspire.

Highlights of the last 12 months for Lazard include advising clients on four of the 10 largest completed global M&A transactions, including the two largest of the year, in deals spanning the four marquee sectors for M&A: consumer and retail, healthcare, industrials and technology, media and telecommunications (TMT).

Lazard advised Dow Chemical on its $130 billion merger of equals with DuPont; it advised Reynolds American on the $49 billion acquisition by BAT of the remaining 57.8% of Reynolds; Level 3 Communications on its $34 billion sale to CenturyLink; and Johnson & Johnson on its $30 billion acquisition of Actelion and related spin-out of Idorsia, a research and development company.

Lazard, which won world’s best bank for public-sector clients in 2017’s Awards for Excellence, expanded its sovereigns, supranationals and agencies advisory presence in the Middle East and eastern Europe.