BUILDING M&A strategy for sponsors, creating shareholder engagement and spearheading M&As for capital markets are only some of the roles that Anu Aiyengar, the first woman to lead the global M&A business of JP Morgan, undertakes. A veteran of over two decades at the firm, Aiyengar has advised deal transactions worth more than $1 trillion, including sandwich chain Subway’s sale to fast-food investor Roark Capital for $9.6 billion last August. She has closed some of the biggest deals in recent years such as French luxury giant LVMH’s acquisition of iconic American jeweller Tiffany for $16 billion in December 2020, Allergan’s $63 billion sale to AbbVie in May 2020, and Walmart’s Flipkart buy for $16 billion in August 2018.
Aiyengar took over as co-head of JP Morgan’s global M&A business in February 2020, a month before lockdown. But despite the odds, she was able to turn the 18 months from July 2020 to December 2021 into one of the best periods for the business.
“The challenge was running this kind of business, which was all about meeting people in person and figuring out how to give the right advice, when everybody was remote,” she says. “The first challenge was to keep the team focused. The second was providing advice to a client to navigate a situation both of us were unfamiliar with,” she adds. — Chitranjan Kumar