Allen & Company

History

Founded in 1922 by Charles Robert Allen, Jr., he was soon joined by his brothers, Herbert A. Allen, Sr. and Harold Allen. The firm is generally regarded as a boutique advisory firm with a specific specialization in real estate and the media and entertainment sectors.

Allen & Company, which since 2002 has been run by Herbert Allen III, grandnephew of the founder, generally shies away from publicity and does not maintain a website or issue press releases, with the exception of the extensive media procured for its annual conference evidenced by its allowance of access to the conference by financial media properties such as CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and others to cover its event.

In 1973, Allen & Company bought a stake in Columbia Pictures. When the business was sold in 1982 to Coca-Cola, it netted a significant profit. Since then, Herbert Allen, Jr. has had a place on Coca-Cola's board of directors.

Since its founding in 1982, the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference has regularly drawn high-profile attendees such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Oprah Winfrey, Robert Johnson, Andy Grove, Richard Parsons, and Donald Keough.

Allen & Co. was one of ten underwriters for the Google initial public offering in 2004. In 2007, Allen was sole advisor to Activision in its $18 billion merger with Vivendi Games. In 2011, the New York Mets hired Allen & Co. to sell a minority stake of the team. That deal later fell apart. In November 2013, Allen & Co. was one of seven underwriters on the initial public offering of Twitter. Allen & Co. was the adviser of Facebook in its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp in February 2014.

In 2015, Allen & Co. was the advisor to Time Warner Cable in its $80 billion 2015 merger with Charter Communications, AOL in its acquisition by Verizon, Centene Corporation in its $6.8 billion acquisition of Health Net, and eBay in its separation from PayPal.

In 2016, Allen & Co was the lead advisor to Time Warner in its $108 billion acquisition by AT&T, LinkedIn for its merger talks with Microsoft, Walmart in its $3.3 billion purchase of Jet.com, and Verizon in its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo!. In 2017, Allen & Co. was the advisor to Chewy.com in PetSmart's $3.35 billion purchase of the online retailer.

Presidents/CEOs

• Charles R. Allen, Jr. (1922–1994)
• Herbert A. Allen, Jr. (1966–2002)
• Herbert A. Allen III (2002– )

Notable former employees

• Bob Kerrey, former Senator and Governor of Nebraska
• George Tenet, former Director of the CIA
• Stephen Greenberg, son of baseball Hall of Fame Hank Greenberg
• Bill Bradley, former United States Senator and Basketball Hall of Fame
• Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber Technologies

References

References

1. "Allen & Co Inc/Allen Holding Inc, Form SC 13G/A, Filing Date Feb 15, 2001". secdatabase.com.
2. (February 20, 2008). "Trends: Secretive New York bank Allen & Co. gets into Silicon Valley media tech".
3. "Allen & Company LLC-Company Profile-Vault.com".
4. Loomis, Carol J.. (June 28, 2004). "Inside the Private World of Allen & Co. Putting a premium on personal ties, this family firm thrives in the land of the giants.". [[Fortune (magazine).
5. (Feb 23, 2014). "Allen & Co. Flourishes as a Tech Deal Maker".
6. "From Ferrari to Facebook: the incredible client list of Wall Street's most secretive firm". Business Insider.
7. "Vivendi and Activision to Create Activision Blizzard - World's Largest, Most Profitable Pure-Play Video Game Publisher".
8. Nathan Vardi, [https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2011/05/26/david-einhorn-is-paying-a-big-premium-for-a-minority-stake-in-the-new-york-mets/#4019c4fe788a "David Einhorn In Deal For A Minority Stake In The New York Mets,"] ''Forbes'', May 26, 2011.
9. (September 1, 2011). "Deal to Sell Piece of Mets to Einhorn Falls Apart". [[The New York Times]].
10. "Twitter Said to Pay 3.25% Bankers' Fee for Market Debut". Bloomberg.
11. (February 19, 2014). "Facebook to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion". Reuters.
12. "From Ferrari to Facebook: the incredible client list of Wall Street's most secretive firm".
13. (May 12, 2015). "Verizon to acquire AOL".
14. (July 2, 2015). "Centene to Combine With Health Net in Transaction Valued at Approximately $6.8 Billion".
15. (September 30, 2014). "eBay & PayPal to Become Independent Companies in 2015".
16. "The massive AT&T-Time Warner deal could mean up to $390 million in fees for Wall Street banks".
17. (June 13, 2016). "Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn - Stories".
18. "Walmart Agrees to Acquire Jet.com, One of the Fastest Growing e-Commerce Companies in the U.S.".
19. (July 25, 2016). "Verizon to acquire Yahoo's operating business".
20. (April 18, 2017). "PetSmart makes online push with Chewy.com deal". [[Financial Times]].
21. Waterman, Shaun. (February 18, 2008). "Tenet gets job at secretive N.Y. bank". [[UPI.com]].
22. Whitford, David. (May 25, 2010). "The king of the sports deal". [[Fortune (magazine).