When Brett Olsher launched a METALS AND MINING investment banking practice for Deutsche Bank back in 2001, the sector was regarded as a backwater compared with merger hot spots like financial services and telecommunications. But in retrospect Olsher’s timing couldn’t have been better.
A global commodities boom has unleashed a surge of deal making in recent years. Last year metals and mining was the second-most-active M&A sector, after finance, with $537 billion worth of deals, or 11 percent of global merger activity, according to data provider Dealogic. In 2001 the sector accounted for just 4.8 percent of global M&A volume, with deals worth $82.5 billion. Olsher has been at the heart of the action, advising Luxembourg-based steelmaker Arcelor on a $33 billion offer from Luxembourg’s Mittal Steel in 2006, helping British-Australian mining group Rio Tinto carry out a $76.2 billion takeover of Canadian aluminum group Alcan last year and, currently, assisting Rio in its defense against a $165 billion bid from Australian rival BHP Billiton. Deutsche recognized the banker’s pivotal work in April by promoting Olsher to co-head of global mergers and acquisitions, alongside consumer goods banker Henrik Aslaksen.
The 47-year-old Olsher, the New York–born son of a Polish-Jewish display-window designer whose family emigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, attributes his success to his experience as a metals trader. “To get traction with clients, you’ve got to step into their shoes when you are giving advice,” he explains. “If I can do that better than some of my peers, it’s because I’ve been on the operating side of this business.”
Olsher attended the University of Massachusetts on a soccer scholarship and set a school goalkeeping record with 132 saves in 1981. He graduated the following year as a soccer All-American with degrees in French, Italian and accounting. After working for three years in New York as an accountant at Price Waterhouse, he moved to Florence to work as a metal trader for Italian steel manufacturer Lucchini Group and to play professional soccer for Rondinella Marzocco, a minor league affiliate of Italian Serie A team Fiorentina. He returned to New York in 1988 to help his older brother, Michael, run Olsher Metals, a small metals trading, processing and distribution business. Harboring bigger ambitions, Olsher parted company with his brother in 1996 to take a job as a metals and mining analyst at J.P. Morgan. After just six months the bank sent him to London to initiate European coverage of the sector. In 2001 he worked with Morgan bankers advising British mining company Billiton on its $35 billion merger with Australia’s BHP; Olsher believed prices were set to rise for everything from coal to oil, creating a fertile climate for consolidation. Shortly after that deal was concluded, Deutsche Bank’s Michael Cohrs, then head of corporate finance, asked him if he would like to head the bank’s new metals and mining team. Olsher didn’t hesitate.
“J.P. Morgan was a more established platform in investment banking, so it would have taken me a longer time to get the same kind of chance,” he explains. “I am not afraid to take risk.”
In addition to working for BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto over the years, Olsher helped Xstrata build itself into a global mining power, advising the Swiss company on a £1 billion (then worth $1.6 billion) London IPO in 2002 that helped finance its £2.5 billion buyout of the coal assets of Glencore International, based in Zug, Switzerland. Deutsche broadened his brief to cover natural resources, including oil, in 2003.
“Like the best bankers, Brett gives his clients ideas as well as the courage to act on them,” says one chief executive who regularly hires Olsher to advise on acquisitions. “Working with him has helped us settle doubts and carry through on bold plans.”
Thanks to Olsher’s mettle, Deutsche Bank, No. 25 in global natural resources M&A in 2001, with ten deals worth $1.6 billion, rose to sixth place last year, with 20 deals worth $199.6 billion, according to Dealogic. In his new role as co-head of M&A, Olsher says he is determined to see Deutsche be in the top five consistently; it currently ranks fourth in global M&A overall after a seventh-place finish last year. “We’ll achieve our goal the same way we have in the natural resources area,” he says. “That means getting to clients early with value-added ideas, differentiated thinking and flawless execution.”
