Meet Michael Klein, the dealmaker behind Hollywood's newest investment banking venture

Publish date: 2024-05-20

Updated

Michael Klein is the investment banker behind a new sports and media investment bank.
His firm, M. Klein & Co., teamed up with Creative Artists Agency to form CAA Evolution.
The new firm will seek to advise on sports sales and big media mergers, WSJ reported.

The talent agency known for representing Hollywood stars like Tom Hanks, Shonda Rhimes, and Steve Spielberg is breaking into Wall Street dealmaking.

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Creative Artists Agency has teamed up with a Wall Street advisory firm to form CAA Evolution. The new entity is a collaboration between CAA's merchant bank Evolution Media Capital and financial advisory M. Klein & Co. It will advise media companies and sports teams on mergers and acquisitions and other dealmaking opportunities, according to a press release.

The two firms have collaborated on sports and media deals before and have collectively advised on more than $1.5 trillion in transactions, the press release said.

News of the new investment bank was first reported Monday by the Wall Street Journal, which said CAA Evolution could compete with boutique banks like Raine Group and LionTree. The Aryeh Bourkoff-led LionTree, for example, has advised on WarnerMedia's tie-up with Discovery to Amazon's purchase of Hollywood studio MGM.

Michael Klein is the Wall Street face behind the CAA Evolution. Here's everything you need to know about Klein, from his deal to lead CF First Boston to his role in merging the PGA Tour with Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

Klein spent more than two decades at Citi

Klein started his career at Salomon Brothers and then Citi. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Klein spent the bulk of his early career at Salomon Brothers, which he joined in 1985 after graduating from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently Citigroup.

Klein's career at Salomon and then Citi mirrored the path of the financial firms. After joining Salomon Brothers' M&A group out of school, he focused on building out the bank's business catering to a booming group of buyout and private equity clients that included KKR, Apollo, and Blackstone, Buyouts reported in 2000.

Following Salomon's acquisition by Travelers — and Citi's subsequent takeover of the company — Klein went on to hold some of the most senior banking roles at Salomon Smith Barney and Citi.

He worked his way from leading banking and markets for Citi's clients in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to serving as chief of global banking. Ultimately serving as vice chairman of Citigroup, Klein was seen as a likely candidate to follow Sandy Weill as CEO.

The arrival of Vikram Pandit to Citi in 2007 threw those plans in disarray. Klein left Citi in 2008, just months after Pandit became chief executive — a role in which he would last a tumultuous five years through the Global Financial Crisis.

Klein does a lot of business with Saudi Arabia

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images

Klein's dealings frequently involve Saudi Arabia.

Bloomberg reported in 2016 that Klein advised Saudi Arabian Mining Co., or Saudi Aramco, on its planned IPO, and that the firm has also offered advisory expertise to Saudi Arabian's sovereign wealth fund.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was weighing a $500 million investment in a Klein-led CS First Boston, the Wall Street Journal reported before the deal was scuttled by the recent banking crisis.

Klein helped Lucid Motors, an electric vehicle company backed by investments by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, go public via a SPAC merger.

He is the founder of M. Klein & Co.

A view of the Manhattan Skyline with the Empire State Building in the center. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Klein's departure from Citi closed one door but opened a path for the banker to launch his own shop in 2012, advising the world's largest companies and investors on mergers and acquisitions.

M. Klein & Company, headquartered in New York City, has advised on some significant deals over the last decade, including Barrick Gold's $17.8 billion ultimately aborted bid for Newmont Mining in 2019, a 2013 tie-up between Glencore and Xstrata, and the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont in 2017 (Klein advised Dow alongside Lazard and Morgan Stanley).

In an interview with Reuters in 2016, Klein said that he viewed his firm as more of an "embedded advisor" to company executives rather than an outside consultant.

In recent years, Klein also embraced a hallmark of the pandemic-induced boom in financial assets: special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Klein launched a series of blank-check companies through 2021; among them, notably, was Churchill Capital IV. The SPAC brought electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors public in July 2021 (since then, Lucid has lost 66% of its value year-to-date).

In 2020, the Financial Times reported that M. Klein & Co. employed a team of roughly 20.

He advised on a controversial merger between the PGA and LIV Golf

Michael Block with the trophy for low PGA professional at the PGA Championship. Darren Carroll/PGA of America via Getty Images

The golfing world was taken by surprise this summer by a surprise merger announcement between the PGA Tour and Saudi-backed upstart and disrupter LIV Golf.

Michael Klein is one of the bankers behind the deal, advising LIV Golf, according to Bloomberg.

The deal was cobbled together in an effort to end mounting litigation between the two professional golfing groups. LIV sued the PGA for anti-competitive practices after it banned its players from competing in LIV events. PGA has sued, claiming that LIV has wrongfully enticed its players to breach their contracts.

PGA players who have joined LIV include Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson.

The deal has led to a Senate hearing and questions from lawmakers who are concerned about Saudi intentions and its human rights record.

LIV Golf was also advised by PCP Capital Partners's Amanda Staveley, according to Bloomberg. The PGA worked with media boutique Allen & Co., the boutique bank behind the Sun Valley confab for tech and finance billionaires.

He once struck a deal to merge with Credit Suisse's investment bank

The logo of Swiss bank Credit Suisse is seen at a branch office in Bern, Switzerland. Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

In February 2023, Klein's firm struck a deal to merge with Credit Suisse's investment banking unit. Credit Suisse agreed to pay $210 million for Klein's firm and give him stake in the new investment banking spinoff, named CS First Boston.

The goal was to grow the unit and then take the company public as early as 2025, further enriching Klein.

Klein would have been the executive in charge of Credit Suisse's efforts to reshape its investment bank in a new US-based unit and help it overcome the Archegos and Greensill crises, which resulted in an exodus of talent.

According to Bloomberg, Klein told Credit Suisse bankers that he would work for a $1 salary and spend 150 days a year on the road attracting new clients to grow the business. Dozens of dealmakers were also expecting to get rich off the IPO through partnership stakes, Bloomberg said.

Instead, Credit Suisse terminated its deal to buy Klein's boutique bank following its fire sale to UBS amid a banking crisis that felled two US regional banks last month: Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.