Merrill and Wachovia's Tishman gambit

Wachovia and Merrill Lynch scored a big win when they won the advisory mandate on Tishman Speyer's $5.4 billion acquisition of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village from Metropolitan Life Insurance. But the win came at a price. They pledged $1.5 billion in bridge equity to seal the deal. Arranging for bridge equity, which basically finds buyers of equity to replace a bridge loan after the deal is done, is lucrative work; commissions are roughly 4 percent. But what if your buyers are scarce afterwords? Some people are talking about the fact that not all of the equity for this deal has been sold. Investors may have balked because the deal resulted in a lawsuit from the buildings' tenants. It may be that Merrill and Wachovia have to hang on to the equity longer than they expected. That would not be a disaster per se.

For more:
- here's an article from Investment Dealers' Digest (For FierceFinance readers)