Evercore Partners' bet on building its activist defence group is paying off, with the investment bank said to be in line for as much as US$50m for advising Whole Foods on its sale to Amazon. After Whole Foods Markets began to draw fire from activist investor Jana Partners earlier this year, the grocer turned to Evercore to advise it on a strategy. Evercore went to work to find a buyer for the company after Jana, which owns around an 8% stake in Whole Foods, started campaigning for a sale in order to unlock shareholder value. Both Evercore's activism group and its M&A group advised on the sale, including Bill Anderson, Eduardo Mestre, Will Hiltz, Paul Billyard and Scott Spiething. Anderson was hired from Goldman Sachs last year in what was seen by many as a coup for the boutique house. Sources told IFR that Amazon meanwhile tapped Goldman Sachs as its sole adviser. Amazon's 8K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission appears to confirm this. According to Freeman Consulting, Evercore stands to take in between US$40m and US$50m in fees advising Whole Foods.
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