(Adds details on Raine, adds NEW YORK to dateline)
LONDON/NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) - Bankers are set toshare up to $120 million in fees thanks to SoftBank Group Corp's planned $32 billion acquisition of British chipdesigner ARM Holdings, according to estimates on Monday.
Seven finance houses will divide the proceeds from thepurchase by the Japanese company. Each side could pay out $50million to $60 million in fees to their respective advisers,estimates by ThomsonReuters/Freeman Consulting showed.
The deal, announced early Monday, is one of thelargest this year and represents a large payday for bankersinvolved, especially for boutiques who generate the bulk oftheir fees from working on M&A transactions.
Goldman Sachs and Lazard were the lead financialadvisers to ARM and will receive the lion's share of the money,the estimates showed. UBS and Barclays werealso on the ticket.
SoftBank was advised by U.S. boutique the Raine Group and UKoutfit Robey Warshaw, plus Japan's Mizuho Securities.
Raine, a U.S. boutique investment bank, founded by formertech, media and telecom bankers from bulge bracket firms in2009, has emerged as one of SoftBank's most trusted financialadvisers. Raine co-founder Jeff Sine and Softbank ChiefExecutive Masayoshi Son have a relationship spanning more than adecade.
The ARM deal comes less than a month after Raine advisedSoftBank on an $8.6 billion divestiture of "Clash of Clans"mobile game maker Supercell to Tencent Holdings. Itwas also a key adviser on SoftBank's $20 billion investment inSprint Corp that closed in 2013.
Advising on SoftBank's biggest-ever deal moves Raine up toNo. 33 in worldwide M&A rankings by Thomson Reuters, ahead ofU.S. boutique rivals Qatalyst Partners and Allen & Co.
Robey Warshaw, SoftBank's other boutique adviser, is nowranked No. 25.
BREXIT M&A FEARS EASE
There will be a further windfall from the bridge financing,which is forecast to yield $45 million in arrangement fees.
The transaction will help European bankers who had fearedthat Britain's vote to leave the European Union could leave ablank space in their deals calendar.
Last year was a bumper year for M&A.
Bankers advising Royal Dutch Shell on itsacquisition of British energy firm BG netted $182.6 million infees, according to estimates at the time.
Global M&A advisory fees fell 15 percent in the first halfof 2016 against the same period last year, totalling $11.5billion. This is in line with a 23 percent decrease indealmaking this year.
(Reporting by Freya Berry in London and Liana B. Baker in SanFrancisco; Editing by Keith Weir and Matthew Lewis)
Barclays (BARC)
