• Practices
  • Offices
  • Lawyers
  • Careers
  • Diversity
  • Pro Bono

We have built a reputation for innovation and creative problem-solving in complex U.S. and cross-border financial institutions mergers and acquisitions, such as Citigroup's joint venture with Morgan Stanley combining Morgan Stanley's Global Wealth Management Group and Citigroup's Smith Barney retail brokerage unites, creating the largest U.S. brokerage.

In addition, working closely with our M&A and IMG lawyers, our FIG lawyers regularly assist financial institutions and private equity groups in making acquisitions and dispositions of financial institutions for their own accounts and for the accounts of the funds they sponsor.

Awards and Rankings

  • Band 1, Financial Institutions M&A – Chambers USA 2012



  • “Davis Polk is one of the most established firms in the financial services arena and stands out for its excellent banking and broker-dealer compliance and enforcement work; it is also lauded as a top-tier transactional choice for financial institutions.” – Chambers USA 2012

Notable Matters

  • We advised ABN AMRO on its $101 billion sale to a consortium consisting of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Banco Santander.
  • We advised Citi on the launch of a series of exchange offers for publicly held convertible and non-convertible preferred and trust preferred securities. Assuming full participation in the swaps, Citi converted into common shares $58 billion of preferred stock and trust preferred securities.
  • We advised Citigroup on its joint venture with Morgan Stanley that combined Morgan Stanley’s Global Wealth Management Group and Citi’s Smith Barney retail brokerage units in the U.S., U.K. and Australia into a new entity, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
  • We are advising Morgan Stanley on the conversion by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) of convertible preferred stock into common stock of Morgan Stanley.
  • We advised Banco Santander, the largest Spanish bank, on its $2.5 billion acquisition of Bank of America’s 24.9% stake in Santander’s Mexican unit, Grupo Financiero Santander.
  • We advised Bermudan reinsurer PartnerRe on its approximately $2 billion acquisition of PARIS RE, a Swiss reinsurer. This deal was named the “European M&A Deal of the Year” at the 2010 IFLR Awards.
  • We advised Grupo Aval, the largest financial conglomerate in Colombia, on its $1.9 billion acquisition of BAC Credomatic, a Central American banking group, from GE Capital.
  • We advised Morgan Stanley on the $1.5 billion sale of its retail investment management business, including Van Kampen Investments, to Invesco, an Atlanta, Georgia-based independent global investment management company.
More >