The Deal LLC Unveils Candidates for Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers Awards

Awards Will Recognize Companies That Have Done the Best Work in Strategic M&A in Three Sectors: Healthcare, Industrials and Information Technology

The Deal LLC, (www.TheDeal.com), the authoritative voice for news, analysis and information on the global deal economy, today announces the candidates for its Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers Awards.

The winners, to be determined in a survey of The Deal’s readers, will be recognized in a luncheon ceremony at The Deal’s M&A Outlook conference on November 12 at the Grand Hyatt New York. The Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers Awards will honor companies that have made the most effective strategic use of transactional tools within three industry sectors: healthcare, industrials and information technology.

Candidate companies for the survey were determined statistically, and represent a roll call of the most transaction-intensive large companies in each sector.

Companies considered for the survey were those with a market cap of $5 billion or more as of June 30, 2008. The Deal, along with data partner Capital IQ, the leader in web-based professional financial information services, then screened for the companies in each sector that closed the highest number and dollar value of acquisitions and divestitures in the past three years. The selection formula also recognized companies for doing a high dollar volume of deals compared to their market capitalizations on the start date.

After the initial pool of candidates was determined by Capital IQ, editors at The Deal reviewed each company’s transaction lists and checked them against The Deal Pipeline, (www.thedeal.com/pipeline), a deal discovery and sourcing database, to narrow the list to thirty major companies.

The Deal’s readers—transaction-focused corporate executives, financiers, investors and advisers—will now determine the winners. With the assistance of survey partner, Guideline Inc., readers will be asked to rate each company on four criteria: choice of targets and strategy; price paid (or received) compared to value; execution, including integration; and overall quality of the deal team. Participants will have access to a wealth of information about the companies and their deals. The survey, located at www.thedeal.com/cdsurvey, will be open to participants until October 13.

An article detailing the Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers study, along with data on the deals done by the candidate companies, appears in the September 22-28 issue of The Deal magazine, and online at www.thedeal.com/corporatedealmaker. A second article, announcing the winners, will be published in both The Deal and online, shortly after award recipients are announced at the luncheon ceremony on November 12.

About The Deal LLC

The Deal LLC, (www.thedeal.com), is a diversified media company that is the authoritative voice of the deal economy. We serve the global deal community–corporate and financial dealmakers, advisers and institutional investors–by providing business and financial news and information that offers fresh insights on the deal economy, a set of interrelated activities, focused on dealmaking of all kinds, whose purpose is to generate corporate growth in a continually changing global market. We offer a comprehensive line of print and electronic products – The Deal, The Daily Deal and TheDeal.com – and live annual events including Private Capital Symposium, Distressed Investing Forum, Corporate Dealmaker Forum and M&A Outlook. The Deal LLC, a privately held company, is owned by private investment funds, including U.S. Equity Partners LP, sponsored by Wasserstein & Co. LP.

About Capital IQ and Standard & Poor’s

Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor’s, provides high-impact information and workflow solutions to over 2,400 leading financial institutions, advisory firms, and corporations. Its solutions are based on the Capital IQ Platform, a unique combination of global private and public capital market data and technology that enables end-users to draw deep market insights, generate better ideas, leverage relationships, and simplify workflow. Clients can deploy the Capital IQ Platform either as a standalone solution or seamlessly integrate its components into existing business applications and portals via systems integration and data feeds. For more information, please visit Capital IQ’s web site at www.capitaliq.com.

Contacts

The Deal LLC
Marielena Santana, 212-313-9275
msantana {at} thedeal(.)com
or
Martha Brown, 212-313-9218
mbrown {at} thedeal(.)com