Mark McMaster has worked on several corporate breakups, which are complicated assignments where advisers can add significant value, he said on this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast.
McMaster, the global head of M&A at Lazard Ltd., worked with American Standard Cos. on a series of deals in 2007. The company sold its bath and kitchen products business to Bain Capital LLC for $1.76 billion and spun off Wabco Holdings Inc.
The rest of the company, which was named Trane Inc. after its commercial air conditioning business, was sold to Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd. for $10.3 billion in 2008.
In 2020, McMaster and Lazard advised Ingersoll-Rand when it combined Trane with Gardner Denver Holdings Inc. to create Trane Technologies plc (TT).
“Trane became a pure-play public company, and the value took off from there,” McMaster said. “It was very clear that if we could separate that business and it kept delivering — and the management team was tremendous — then the multiple would expand.”
McMaster also discussed his career as a banker — he’s been at Lazard since 1988 — and how he prepares for meetings. “I visualize what I want to say and how I want to say it,” he said, “but I don’t visualize the response, because I don’t want to answer the question I thought the board member should have asked but rather the question they actually asked.”
Listen to the podcast with Mark McMaster below:
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