Even after AT&T’s $108.7 billion blockbuster deal to purchase Time Warner hit a snag after federal regulators called the transaction anti-competitive — a matter scheduled to be heard in court next month — sector enthusiasm over mergers and acquisitions is at a high point.

Scale is the word of the day for distributors and content creators, and neither side is gathering dust.

While AT&T-Time Warner is still the granddaddy of them all, several smaller deals made their way down the pipeline last year, including Discovery Communications’s $14.6 billion acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive, TPG Capital’s $2.36 billion purchase of Wave Broadband and Atlantic Broadband’s $1.4 billion purchase of Metrocast. And then in December, The Walt Disney Co. agreed to pay $66.1 billion (including assumed debt) for certain assets of 21st Century Fox.

The Disney-Fox deal appeared to set the tone for the industry. By purchasing Fox’s 20th Century Fox movie and TV production studio, its 22 regional sports networks, cable channels FX, FXX, and National Geographic, a 39% interest in British satellite service Sky and Fox’s 30% interest in streaming service Hulu, Disney threw its hat firmly in the direct-to-consumer ring. Fox, by keeping its broadcast network and stations, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, national sports networks FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network, solidly backed a future that is based on live sports and news.

Whichever side of the scale argument you choose, knowing who and where the top rainmakers are in the media space is becoming more important than ever.

With that in mind, Multichannel News presents the 2018 class of Money All-Stars, including some familiar names who have switched firms over the years and new entrants expected to make a lasting impact.

DAN ALSTER
Title: Managing Director, Leveraged Finance Group, J.P. Morgan

Background: Alster has been active in leveraged finance since joining J.P. Morgan in 2002, helping clients raise capital via syndicated loans and high-yield bonds across a broad range of industries. Located in J.P. Morgan’s San Francisco office, he covers the West Coast, in addition to the TMT space, with focus on the Technology and Entertainment verticals.

He was a vice president in the Restructuring and Capital Advisory Group at Evercore Partners from 2008 to 2010. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Alster was an attorney with Naschitz, Brandes & Co. in Tel Aviv, Israel. He also served in the Israeli Air Force in different capacities for seven years, with a most recent role as a captain in the Air Operations Controller Unit.

Alster earned an MBA from Boston University in 2002 and LL.B. in law and B.B. in business from the College of Management in Israel.

Notable Deals: Has advised key clients such as Mediacom Communications; Lions Gate Entertainment; MGM Studios/Legendary; VeriFone, Western Digital, NCR and Sandvine.

GARRETT BAKER
Title: Managing Director and Head of the Telecommunications, Media & Technology group, Lazard Middle Market

Background: Baker has more than 20 years of experience advising on mergers and acquisitions, having generated, led and completed more than 90 transactions with an aggregate value in excess of $18 billion. Baker has deep experience across the TMT industry, including specific expertise with broadband, telecom infrastructure, mobile and digital media companies. Prior to joining Lazard Middle Market, Baker was president of Waller Capital Partners, where he led mergers and acquisitions for cable, telecom and digital media clients and oversaw day-to-day operations of the firm. He joined Waller Capital Partners in 1998 and was named president in 2009. He began his career as a mergers and acquisitions banker at Bear Stearns & Co.

He is also a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). Baker received a bachelor of science degree in analytical finance and graduated with honors from Wake Forest University.

Notable Deals: Special committee of the board of directors of General Communication Inc. on its pending sale to Liberty Interactive; NewWave/RBI on its sale to Cable One; Wave Broadband on its sale to Oak Hill Capital Partners and GI Partners; iStreamPlanet on its sale to Time Warner’s Turner; GTCR on its acquisitions of NewWave and Cable Management Associates; ZDirect on its sale to TravelClick; RCN and Grande Communications on their sales to ABRY Partners; Enventis on its stock-for-stock merger with Consolidated Communications; Comcast on its sale of noncore assets to FirstComm; Baja Broadband on its sale to TDS; advised Wave Broadband on its sale to Oak Hill Capital and GI Partners. (Certain transactions completed prior to joining the firm.)

ARYEH BOURKOFF
Title: Co-founder and CEO, LionTree LLC

Background: Bourkoff founded LionTree in mid-2012 with former UBS colleague Ehren Stenzler after serving as head of all of UBS’s investment banking operations in the Americas. Before that, he was vice chairman of UBS Technology’s media and telecom investment banking, a job he took in 2010. Earlier, he headed the media and communications research group, specializing in the cable/satellite and entertainment sectors. Before joining UBS, Bourkoff was a senior cable and telecommunications highyield research analyst at CIBC World Markets. He was also a member of the high-yield research group at Smith Barney.

Notable Deals: Charter Communications’s $80 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable; Charter’s $10 billion purchase of Bright House Networks; Liberty Global’s $23.3 billion purchase of Virgin Media; Verizon Communications’s $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL; helped raise $15 million for streaming service FuboTV; advised Snap Inc. on its initial public offering.

BLAIR EFFRON
Title: Co-Founder and Partner, Centerview Partners

Background: Effron co-founded Centerview in 2006. The firm has advised on more than $1 trillion of transactions since its establishment. Effron began his career at Dillon Read, where he for worked 10 years before it was merged into several successor firms that became UBS. While at UBS, Effron was among the most senior bankers in the organization. He was group vice chairman of UBS AG and a member of the board of UBS Investment Bank, where he also sat on several management committees. In his 25-yearplus career, Effron has advised Fortune 500 and multinational companies across a range of sectors including in the consumer and retail, general industrial, healthcare and media sectors.

Notable Deals: 21st Century Fox’s pending sale of content assets to The Walt Disney Co. for $66.1 billion, including debt; advisers to Time Warner Cable in its $80 billion sale to Charter Communications; GE’s $18 billion sale of its remaining 49% interest in NBCUniversal to Comcast; News Corp.’s $6 billion acquisition of Dow Jones, the $9 billion spinoff of its publishing assets and its acquisitions of Shine Media and Harlequin Enterprises (pending).

ERIC FEDERMAN
Title: Head of Media and Telecom Banking, Credit Suisse

Background: Federman’s coverage responsibility includes the U.S. cable TV sector, the U.S. motion-picture exhibitor sector and several other diversified media companies. He joined Credit Suisse in 2003 after spending 11 years at Merrill Lynch in the Global Media Group. He has advised and financed clients in the cable and pay TV industry for 20 years.

Notable Deals: Credit Suisse served as lead joint book-running manager of WideOpenWest’s $310 million initial public offering and advised Lionsgate in its $4.4 billion purchase of Starz. Other advisory transactions in the cable sector have included the sale of Bresnan Communications to Cablevision Systems; Knology’s acquisition of PrairieWave; the sale of WideOpenWest to Avista Capital Partners; and Comcast’s acquisition of AT&T Broadband. Recent lead-left financing transactions in the cable sector have included transactions for Charter Communications, Atlantic Broadband, Knology and WideOpenWest.

JONATHAN FRIESEL
Title: Managing Partner, Co-Founder, Twin Point Capital

Background: Friesel co-founded Twin Point in September 2015, after a 17-year career at Oak Hill Capital. As the managing partner of Twin Point, he has senior managerial responsibility for the firm’s investment activities and operations.

Prior to Twin Point, Friesel was a partner at Oak Hill Capital, where he was a member of the investment committee and held senior leadership responsibilities for the firm’s Media & Communications and Services investment groups. He also served on the firm’s operations, compliance and ESG committees.

He currently serves on the boards of TPC Broadband Holdings and Flix Entertainment, both portfolio companies of Twin Point. He is also a member of the Advisory Council for The Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University.

Notable Deals: Atlantic Broadband (sold to Cogeco in 2012); Local TV Holdings (sold to Tribune in 2013); Security Networks (sold to Ascent Capital in 2013); Wave Division Holdings (sold to TPG and RCN in 2017); and WOW! Internet, Cable and Phone (sold to Avista Capital in 2005). Prior to Oak Hill, Friesel worked at Lehman Brothers Holdings in its Media & Telecommunications group. He earned a bachelor of sciences degree from Cornell University.

GREGG LEMKAU
Title: Co-head of the Investment Banking Division, Goldman Sachs

Background: Lemkau is a member of the management committee and IBD executive committee. He has advised on hundreds of transactions during his career at Goldman Sachs and has spent significant time with clients in health care, technology, media and telecom globally, while working in offices in Europe and the United States. Previously, he was co-head of Global Mergers & Acquisitions. Before that, he was head of Mergers & Acquisitions for EMEA and Asia Pacific. Prior to that, he was global co-head of the Technology, Media and Telecom Group and served as chief operating officer for the Investment Banking Division. Earlier in his career, he was global co-head of Healthcare Investment Banking and co-head of High Technology Mergers & Acquisitions. He served as chairman of the Firmwide Commitments Committee from 2011 to 2015. Lemkau joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in Mergers & Acquisitions in 1992 and was named managing director in 2001 and partner in 2002. Lemkau serves as chairman of the board of directors for Grassroot Soccer, a non-profit organization using the power of soccer to fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa. He also serves as chairman of Friends of Dartmouth Soccer and is vice chairman of the Dartmouth Athletics Advisory Board. He serves on the board of advisors for Team Rubicon, a non-profit organization whose mission is to unite the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams. He also serves on the board of trustees of St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Conn. He earned a B.A. in Government and Economics from Dartmouth College in 1991.

Notable Deals: Softbank investment into Uber (advised Uber Board); sale of Formula One to Liberty Media; sale of DirecTV to AT&T (advised DirecTV); Spotify sale of stake to Tencent (advised Spotify); sale of Yahoo to Verizon (advised Yahoo); Discovery’s acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive (advised Discovery); WME’s acquisition of UFC (advised WME).

NAVID MAHMOODZADEGAN
Title: Co-President, Moelis & Co.

Background: Before Moelis & Co., Mahmoodzadegan was most recently the Global Head of Media Investment Banking at UBS and a member of the UBS Investment Banking Department Americas Executive Committee. He was previously an investment banker at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. His expertise is rooted in a deep understanding of the broadcasting, cable, publishing, entertainment, satellite and digital media sectors, significant experience working with financial sponsors and broad knowledge of all aspects of capital structure. He serves on the Carlthorp School Board of Trustees and the National Board of Directors of Jumpstart. Mahmoodzadegan holds an A.B. from the University of Michigan (Phi Beta Kappa) and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude).

Notable Deals: Tribune Media’s $6.6 billion sale to Sinclair Broadcast Group; Blackstone Group’s acquisition of SESAC Holdings; iflix’s $133 million private funding; iHeartMedia’s $550 million refinancing of its ABL facility; and Eldridge Industries’s creation of Valence Media.

PAUL TAUBMAN
Title: Founding chairman and CEO, PJT Partners

Background: Taubman founded PJT Partners in early 2013 and, in October 2014, announced the intention to merge into the spun off Blackstone advisory businesses. The newly combined company was formed and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 1, 2015. Prior to founding PJT Partners, Taubman spent almost 30 years at Morgan Stanley in a series of increasingly significant leadership positions including co-president of Institutional Securities. After retiring from Morgan Stanley in 2012, he served in an independent capacity to advise companies on a number of significant transactions before starting PJT Partners. Taubman received a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He is involved in numerous philanthropic activities including serving as board president of New York Cares, a trustee and executive committee member of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a national advisory board member of Youth INC and a trustee of the Foundation for Educating Children with Autism.

Notable Deals: Served as financial adviser to Cablevision Systems in its $17.7 billion sale to Altice N.V.; advised Yahoo on its $4.8 billion sale to Verizon Communications; advised Lionsgate in its $4.4 billion purchase of Starz; adviser to Comcast in its $3.8 billion purchase of Dreamworks Animation; advised TPG Capital in its $2.25 billion purchase of RCN/Grande Communications; and advised Verizon Communications in its $2.4 billion purchase of Fleetmatics.

DAVID TRUJILLO
Title: Partner, TPG Capital, TPG Growth

Background: As a Partner of TPG, Trujillo leads the private equity firm’s internet, digital media and communications investing efforts across TPG Capital and TPG Growth. Prior to joining TPG in 2006, Trujillo was with GTCR, a Chicago based private-equity fund, from 1998 through 2005. He is currently a director of AXS (in partnership with AEG), Cirque du Soleil, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Ipsy, RCN and Grande Communications (which recently acquired Wave Broadband), RentPath, Uber, Univision Communications and Vice Media. Trujillo led TPG’s growth investments in Airbnb, Spotify and Uber, as well as its historic credit investments in Citadel Broadcasting and Clear Channel. Trujillo previously served on the boards of Layer3 TV (sold to T-Mobile in 2018), Lynda.com (sold to LinkedIn in 2015), Fenwal Therapeutics (sold to Fresenius SE in 2012), HSM Electronic Protection (sold to Stanley Works in 2007), Sorenson Communications and Triad Financial (sold to Santander in 2010). Trujillo received a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Notable Deals: Airbnb, CAA, Cirque du Soleil, Layer3TV, RCN Communications-Grande Communications-Wave Broadband, Spotify, Uber, Univision and Vice Media.

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Credit Suisse co-head of EMEA investment banking Marisa Drew knew early on that she liked entrepreneurs.

She just didn’t want to be one.

Drew got a taste for investment banking early on through a two-year internship in New York fresh out of the University of Virginia, where she had earned an undergrad degree in finance.

At the end of that internship — which required that she go back to school to get her MBA before she was allowed to return — Drew felt that she hadn’t yet amassed enough life experience. So she began working in the then-nascent field of private equity.

It was there that she met her first Trumps (South African real estate moguls Eddie and Julius, not Donald), and, although she learned a lot, she thought the pace was too slow.

“In banking, you find yourself doing five or six live deals at a time,” Drew said. “Whereas, in private equity, you evaluate a large number of transactions, but you only bid on a small fraction of those deals and you only win a fraction of that. Private equity wasn’t for me.”

From there, Drew moved into the entrepreneurial space, tapped by a former colleague to run a chain of learning centers in the then-new computer education arena. While again learning a lot about running a successful business and being part of a chain that was growing rapidly, she found it had its drawbacks, too.

SEEKING ‘GOOD STRESS’

“Intellectually, I was no longer challenged once the business was up and running,” Drew said. “And I found there is good stress and bad stress. The stress of solely making every decision, and the daily pressure of making decisions that were life and death for the business, was oppressive stress for me. Plus, I really missed the energy and flow of the markets.”

When someone stepped up to buy the business, Drew went back to school, getting her MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and moved on to her next adventure. This time, she found herself back in investment banking, helping to capitalize early- growth companies, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s put her squarely in the middle of telecom and cable.

“Everything came together at that moment,” Drew said. “I just found the perfect job, and honestly, I never looked back.”

Drew engineered financings and deals in the United States, Canada and Latin America for Merrill Lynch and, in 1999, moved to London to help start up its leveraged finance practice. Four years later, in 2003, she was doing the same for Credit Suisse.

She has done several groundbreaking deals, including an exit financing for bankrupt U.K. cable operators NTL and Telewest that contemplated a merger between the two entities before it actually occurred — unprecedented at the time, but commonplace today. Later, Drew also developed a new financing structure for Liberty Global that allowed the cable giant to use fluctuations in its leverage ratio to finance acquisitions.

MALONE’S FAVORITE BANKER

Carving out that new ground won Drew and her team notice. Drew has been called Liberty Global chairman John Malone’s favorite banker in Europe, having done several deals for that company — including its $25.5 billion acquisition of Virgin Media — as well for European telecom giant Altice Group and countless others.

Drew also spends time mentoring women for banking careers and serving as co-chair of the Credit Suisse Diversity Leadership Council and as a trustee of the Credit Suisse Foundation. She is also the founder of the Competitors’ Diversity Forum and a member of the C200, an organization comprised of the top women in business globally.

Despite its reputation as a male-dominated environment, Drew said she believes banking has rewards like few others for women and men. Over the years, she helped build the first cable company in post-Communist Poland and financed the creation of a mobile telephone network in Medellin, Colombia, during the drug wars in that country, providing a communications infrastructure that improved the safety of citizens there.

“How do you put a price on that?” Drew said. “The fact that I feel that I had a hand in building whole industries, I don’t think women should shy away from that opportunity. If I can somehow impart the experience I’ve had or inspire someone to say, ‘This is a career I am thinking hard about and not dismissing it out of hand because on the surface, it seems like a career not suited to women,’ then I feel like I’ve done something to give back for the lucky successes I’ve had.”

Despite one sizable change of heart — Comcast’s decision to withdraw its plan to merge with Time Warner Cable — the deal market didn’t disappoint in 2015, with three major transactions valued at more than $100 billion crossing the transom and more expected to enter the pipeline this year. While Charter Communications dominated the space with its pending $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable and $10.5 billion buy of Bright House Networks, other deals and players entered the fray late in the year.

Topping the list is European telco Altice Group, which completed its $9.1 billion buy of Suddenlink Communications in January and has targeted a first-half 2016 close for its pending $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems. Next is Crestview Partners’s $100 million investment in overbuilder WideOpenWest, a deal that brought cable veteran Jeff Marcus back into the business. Cable wasn’t the only industry undergoing a consolidation phase, though, as evidenced by several large TV-station group deals, including Nexstar Broadcasting’s pending $4.6 billion purchase of Media General.

While the deals have come fast and furious, and that pace is expected to continue through 2016, it has also been a period of great market volatility. Programmer stocks have been hammered as viewers look to access content via platforms other than traditional TV, and both networks and distributors are scrambling to solidify their positions and improve cost efficiencies. It’s never been more important to tap the most knowledgeable industry minds to navigate the ever-changing landscape.

With that in mind, Multichannel News introduces for the fifth consecutive year, the Money All-Stars, our annual [alphabetical] listing of the top men and women in the investment banking, private equity and financial advisory space.

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Ben Braun

Title: Partner, LionTree Advisors

Background: Prior to LionTree, Braun was head of Media and Telecommunications mergers and acquisitions for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which he joined in 1997. Braun has represented clients across a wide range of industry sectors, including cable, music, entertainment, TV and radio broadcasting, digital media, advertising, information services and telecommunications. Braun earned his MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, where he graduated with honors as an Amos Tuck Scholar.

Notable Tranactions: The Madison Square Garden Co.’s spinoff of MSG Networks; CPP’s acquisition of a stake in Entertainment One; Sprint’s sale to Softbank; Marvel Entertainment’s sale to The Walt Disney Co.; Cablevision Systems’s spinoffs of AMC Networks and MSG; Knology’s sale to WideOpenWest; Insight Communications’s sale to Time Warner Cable; Paetec’s sale to Windstream and Level 3 Communications’s acquisition of Global Crossing.

Gil Ha

Title: Managing Director and Head of Telecom Advisory, Greenhill & Co.

Background: Prior to joining Greenhill, Ha served as a senior managing director at Evercore Partners; as a partner of Rohatyn Associates; as co-head of Deutsche Bank’s Telecommunications Investment Banking Group for the Americas; and as a managing director of Lazard in New York. Prior to becoming an investment banker, Ha was a senior consultant at Accenture.

He holds an MBA with high honors from Columbia University Business School in New York and received bachelor of science degrees in Electrical Engineering with Highest Distinction from Columbia University School of Engineering and in Physics from Allegheny College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Notable Transactions: Ha specializes in providing financial and strategic advice to corporate clients and has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, leveraged finance and restructuring transactions. Over the years, he has advised on some of the largest and most seminal transactions in the Telecom, Media and Technology sector, including AT&T’s acquisition of BellSouth; SBC’s acquisition of AT&T; Cingular’s acquisition of AT&T Wireless; the formation of Cingular Wireless JV; SBC’s acquisition of Pacific Telesis; SBC’s acquisition of Sterling Commerce; the sale of Equant to France Telecom; the breakup of US West; the sale of MCI to WorldCom; US West’s investment in Time Warner Entertainment; and MCI’s strategic investment in News Corp. Other selected transactions he has advised on since joining Greenhill include: AT&T’s divestitures of Connecticut wireline operations (to Frontier Communications); Sterling Commerce (to IBM); AT&T Japan (to IIJ) and the withdrawn $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile US; Australia’s AUD$40 billion National Broadband Network (NBN) initiative; the government of Norway on its telecom holdings; and Independent Board Committee of Telecom Italia on potential merger with H3G (Hutchinson’s Italian mobile business).

M&A Outlook: “I anticipate significant M&A activities in Europe, particularly in the telecom sector.”

David Lomer

Title: Co-Head of M&A for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, J.P. Morgan.

Background: Lomer has worked at J.P. Morgan and its predecessor companies since 1997, when he started his investment-banking career in M&A. His early experience was in London and Madrid before moving to San Francisco and New York to focus on large cap telecoms and media clients, executing Comcast’s $72 billion acquisition of AT&T Broadband and other transactions for clients including Liberty Media, The Walt Disney Co., Charter Communications and Cox Communications.

Notable Transactions: Lomer has most recently been based in London, where he was co-head of the Telecoms, Media & Technology investment- banking team, which he helped to build into the leading practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He has recently advised on Altice’s $82 billion reorganization merger, Virgin Media’s $24 billion sale to Liberty Global and Ziggo’s $10 billion sale to Liberty Global.

Gregory Miller

Title: Managing Director and Head of Media, Greenhill & Co.

Background: Prior to joining Greenhill in 2004, he was a managing director at Credit Suisse, where he worked for more than 14 years, also focusing on the media sector. Over the past two decades, he has worked with many of the world’s leading media companies, including Scholastic, Gannett, Tegna, IAC, Dentsu, Viacom, The Walt Disney Co., Bertelsmann, Lagardère, Vivendi, Thomson Reuters, Moody’s Investors Service, FactSet, Wolters Kluwer, Informa, DMGT, Cheil and many others. He has advised a wide range of consumer and professional companies on more than 100 mergers and acquisitions and capital-raising transactions in all segments of the industry.

Miller received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1993 and a B.A. in English, summa cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame in 1987.

Notable Transactions: Gannett’s spinoff of its publishing division, which created two separate public companies: broadcasting/digital (now known as Tegna) and publishing (Gannett); Gannett’s acquisition of Cars.com; Scholastic’s sale of its education technology division to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; also completed transactions in television production, consumer book publishing, professional information, digital media, events and other media segments.

M&A Outlook: “Many leading media players over the past couple of years have unlocked substantial shareholder value by separating businesses that have little operational or sector overlap and different growth profiles. Some have accomplished this separation via sales of non-core assets, and others have pursued spinoffs to create focused, publicly traded companies with capital structures consistent with their profiles and capital needs. I expect this trend will continue, partly fueled by activists, in the coming year.”

John Momtazee

Title: Managing Director and Founding Partner, Moelis & Co.

Background: Since co-founding Moelis & Co. in 2007, Momtazee has advised clients across several media sectors, including diversified media, cable television, broadcast television, broadcast radio, digital media, entertainment, publishing and outdoor advertising. Momtazee has advised and financed many of the largest, most sophisticated media clients and worked extensively with leading financial sponsors.

Prior to Moelis & Co., Momtazee was a managing director in the Global Media Group and the head of Broadcasting Investment Banking at UBS Investment Bank. Momtazee was previously an investment banker at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and then served as chief financial officer of The .TV Corp. In 2009, Momtazee was honored as one of Investment Dealers’ Digest’s “40 Under 40.”

Notable Transactions: Fairway sale to Lamar; KLAS-TV (Landmark) sale to Nexstar; KASW-TV (Meredith) sale to Nexstar; YMF Media sale to Emmis; 600-MHz auction spectrum advisory for Tegna; 600-MHz auction spectrum advisory for Sinclair Broadcast Group; Allbritton sale to Sinclair; Media General TV station divestitures to Sinclair, Meredith and Hearst; Tribune restructuring (advised UCC).

Michael Ronen

Title: Co-Chief Operating Officer of the Global Technology, Media and Telecom Group, Goldman Sachs, responsible for the media and telecom M&A business in the Americas

Background: Ronen joined Goldman Sachs in 1998 as an associate in the Communications, Media and Entertainment Group and later became its business unit manager, subsequently joining the Merger Leadership Group to work with many of the firm’s media, telecom and technology clients. From 2008 to 2010, he was also responsible for developing the firm’s M&A-related derivatives business within the Americas Financing Group. Ronen was named managing director in 2006 and partner in 2012.

Prior to joining the firm, Ronen served in the Israeli Air Force Intelligence Corps and later practiced law as an attorney in Israel, specializing in bankruptcies and financial restructurings.

He earned an LLB (JD) from Tel Aviv University in 1994 and an MBA, with distinction, from the Stern School of Business at New York University in 1998.

Notable Transactions: Media General sale to Nexstar ($4.6 billion, 2016); Activision Blizzard acquisition of King Digital ($5.9 billion, 2015); AT&T acquisitions of Nextel and Iusacell in Mexico (2014 and 2015, $2.5 billion and $1.9 billion); Vivendi’s sale of GVT to Telefónica ($10 billion, 2014); Softbank’s acquisition of Sprint ($20 billion, 2012).

M&A Outlook: “On the back of a few years of strong M&A activity in the TMT space, we continue to see significant consolidation opportunities in many areas of the Media and Telecom landscape. Secular headwinds will continue to pressure traditional media companies and their distribution partners (cable and satellite) to increase scale and remove fixed costs. The exponential growth in online and mobile consumption of content will further induce the traditional players to invest outside their comfort zones. Finally, inbound and outbound cross-border activity will also continue to influence the M&A market, with U.S. companies investing foreign cash overseas and foreign investors looking to capitalize on relatively strong secular trends in the U.S. vs. Europe and the rest of the world.”

Brent Rosenthal

Title: Partner, W.R. Huff Asset Management

Background: Prior to joining Huff in 2002, Rosenthal served as director of mergers & acquisitions for RSL Communications. Previously, he served emerging media companies for Deloitte & Touche. He is a certified public accountant and received an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University and an undergraduate degree in accounting from Lehigh University.

Notable Transactions: In 2003, Rosenthal authored an internal Huff white paper about the problems in media measurement, and subsequently identified Rentrak as a platform company to capitalize on this trend. He spearheaded Huff’s investment in Rentrak, led the overhaul of its management team and board of directors, and worked closely with the new management team to reinvent the company. Rosenthal joined Rentrak’s board in 2008 and has served its non-executive chairman since 2011. Rentrak completed its merger with comScore on Jan. 29 and, following the closing, Rosenthal joined comScore’s board as chairman of the Audit Committee.

Rosenthal also serves as a special adviser to the board of Park City Group and on the boards of several private Hispanic food companies. From 2006 to 2012, he served as a strategic adviser to Virgin Media’s directors and executive management, providing turnaround and crisis-management services, as well as operational and financial analysis and recommendations. From 2007 to 2010, he advised Time Warner Inc.’s executive management. In 2009, Multichannel News named Rosenthal to its annual “40 Under 40” list of influential executives.

M&A Outlook: “Traditional media companies must continue to modernize product offerings, streamline internal operations and fortify economies of scale to effectively react to the accelerating media fragmentation and the consumer’s rapidly changing media consumption habits. Also, new media companies require greater scale to effectively compete against these large traditional media companies. Therefore, the current media M&A mega-cycle will continue at the same torrid pace for the next few years.”

Alan Schwartz

Title: Executive chairman, Guggenheim Partners, and chairman, Guggenheim Securities

Background: Schwartz joined Bear Stearns in 1976 at the age of 26 after an injury to his pitching arm ended his chances of professional baseball; he was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds after graduating from Duke University in 1972, but never reported because of the injury. He worked his way up to leading the firm’s research department in 1979 and heading up its investment banking department in 1985. Schwartz was named CEO of Bear Stearns in 2008 after its stock cratered in the wake of the collapse of two of its hedge funds. Despite efforts to turn around the firm, the Federal Reserve forced its sale later that year to J.P. Morgan as the global financial crisis worsened. He joined Guggenheim Partners in June 2009 and has quickly built the boutique firm into one of the biggest players in the M&A space with clients like the Walt Disney Co., Verizon Communications, Charter Communications and Tribune Media.

Notable Transactions: Represented Verizon Communications in its $130 billion purchase of the remaining stake in Verizon Wireless from Vodafone; represented Verizon in its $4.4 billion purchase of AOL; financial adviser to Cablevision Systems in its pending $17.7 billion sale to Altice; financial adviser to Charter Communications in its pending $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable; co-manager to Tribune Media in its $517.4 million follow-on offering; financial adviser to Verizon in its $10.5 billion sale of wireline business in California, Florida and Texas to Frontier Communications.

Chris Ventresca

Title: Global Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, J.P. Morgan

Background: Ventresca, who started his 27-year career at J.P. Morgan, was named North American co-head of M&A in 2008 and global co-head of M&A in 2013. He has advised on more than $1 trillion of announced M&A transactions during his career, including a variety of strategic acquisitions, mergers and sales, as well as a number of hostile defenses and shareholder activism situations. He received an MBA in Finance from the New York University Stern School of Business and a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University.

Notable Transactions: In the media and telecom space, Ventresca has advised on Comcast’s announced acquisition of Time Warner Cable (withdrawn in April 2015); Verizon’s acquisition of Vodafone’s 45% stake in Verizon Wireless; Virgin Media’s merger with Liberty Global and Verizon’s sale of its tower assets to American Tower Corp.