Duff & Phelps

Duff & Phelps Corporation

Type	Private
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1932
Headquarters	55 East 52nd Street New York, New York, United States
Products	Valuation Mergers and Acquisitions Dispute Consulting Restructuring Alternative Asset Advisory Tax Services Transaction Opinions Legal Management Consulting
Owner	The Carlyle Group, Stone Point Capital LLC, Pictet & Cie and Edmond de Rothschild Group
Number of employees	2,000
Website	www.duffandphelps.com

Duff & Phelps Corporation is a global valuation and corporate finance advisor. Its primary service areas are valuation, dispute consulting, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, alternative assets, tax, transaction opinions and legal management consulting.

The firm has dedicated industry practices focusing on consumer and retail, energy and mining, financial services and asset management, healthcare and life sciences, industrials, media and entertainment, real estate and technology and telecom. Clients include publicly traded and privately held companies, law firms, government entities and investment organizations such as private equity firms and hedge funds.

Duff & Phelps Corporation was founded in 1932 and is headquartered in New York City. The firm currently has over 1400 employees with offices across North America, Europe and Asia.

History

1932–1992

Duff & Phelps was founded in 1932 to provide investment research. Since that time, the firm expanded into investment banking and investment management as well as credit rating. In 1979, Duff & Phelps expanded into investment management, creating what would become Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. (DPIMC). The company remained employee-owned, originally as a partnership and later as an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP).

In 1984, the company was nearly acquired by Security Pacific Corp. in a $35 million transaction. However, the deal was called off in early 1985 Security Pacific Corp. because of restraints put on the deal by the Federal Reserve Board, which would have precluded the company from issuing public credit ratings.^[1][2][3]

The company was acquired five years later, in 1989, in a $146 million management buyout. The buyout was backed by Freeman, Spogli & Co., a private equity firm, which controlled approximately two-thirds of the company, and management and employees owning the remaining third of the company's equity. The transaction was highly leveraged, financed with 79% bank borrowings and 15% coupon high-yield bonds.^[4] The company was taken public for the first time in 1992 through an initial public offering of stock on the New York Stock Exchange.^[5]

Since 1993

By the mid-1990s, Duff & Phelps, which was operating as a publicly traded company, began to focus on its core investment management, financial advisory and investment banking operations. As a result, in October 1994, the Duff & Phelps's credit rating business, Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Co., was spun off to its shareholders and listed on the New York Stock Exchange.^[6] In 2000, Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Co. was acquired by Fitch Group, which later eliminated the use of the Duff & Phelps name.^[7]

In 2004, Lovell Minnick Partners sponsored a management buyout of the company, the second time the company had undergone a leveraged buyout transaction, acquiring the company from its then owner, Webster Financial Corporation. As part of the transaction, the company was merged with Stone Ridge Partners, a middle-market investment banking firm.^[8][9] In 2005, the company raised equity from Vestar Capital Partners to support the company's acquisition strategy that included the purchase of Standard & Poor's Corporate Value Consulting business as well as Valuemetrics, a financial advisory firm specializing in valuation services founded in 1981.^[10]

In 2006, it acquired specialty investment bank Chanin Capital Partners, LLC.

In 2007, Duff & Phelps completed its second initial public offering raising $133 million and listing the company's shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO provided a partial exit for its two private equity financial sponsors.^[11][12] Also in 2007, the firm formed a strategic alliance with Tokyo-based Shinsei Bank. More recently, the firm has continued its acquisition strategy acquiring Dubinsky & Co., a financial consulting company and Kane Reece Associates.^[13] In 2010, the firm acquired the consulting business of Dynamic Credit Partners, bringing specialized talent in complex fixed income securities analysis, valuation and litigation support.

2012

Duff and Phelps were appointed Administrators to Rangers F.C., on 14 February 2012, the largest football insolvency in the UK.

Following the negotiation of an agreement with the playing squad to sacrifice salaries to help the club, the Administrators completed a sale of the club to the Sevco Scotland Ltd which later renamed The Rangers Football Club Ltd, headed by Charles Green, on 14 June 2012. December 30, 2012, Duff & Phelps, announced that it had entered into a definitive merger agreement under which a consortium, comprising controlled affiliates of or funds managed by The Carlyle Group, Stone Point Capital LLC, Pictet & Cie and Edmond de Rothschild Group will acquire the Company for $15.55 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $665.5 million. In April 2013, Duff & Phelps began a partnership with the consortium of financial sponsors.

2014

The administrators of Rangers Football Club, Gary Withey, David Grier, Paul Clark and David Whitehouse were held during early morning raids in England. Mr Clark, Mr Whitehouse and Mr Grier worked for Duff and Phelps, the firm appointed as Rangers' administrators.They were appointed at the request of Craig Whyte, who bought Rangers for One Pound Sterling, and who had previous dealings with Mr Grier before the latter joined the firm of Duff and Phelps.

^[14]

References

External links

• Duff & Phelps (company website)