Bio

Blair W. Effron, Partner, co-founded Centerview in 2006. The Firm has advised on over $1 trillion of transactions since its founding. The Firm’s approximately 250 professionals are in New York, London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as well as in investing offices in Menlo Park, California, and Greenwich, Connecticut. Mr. Effron began his career at Dillon Read Co. Inc., where he worked ten years before it was merged into several successor firms, in what was to become UBS. While at UBS, Mr. Effron was among the most senior bankers in the organization. He was Group Vice Chairman of UBS AG and a member of the Board of UBS Investment Bank, where he also sat on several management committees. In his over 25-year career, Mr. Effron has advised Fortune 500 and multinational companies across a range of sectors including in the Consumer and Retail, General Industrial, Healthcare and Media industries. While at Centerview, selected clients with which Mr. Effron has executed multiple transactions include: Kraft (advisor on its $58 billion merger with Heinz); H.J. Heinz (advisor on its $28 billion sale to Berkshire Hathaway and 3G and advisor in its proxy contest with Trian Partners); GE (advisor on its planned disposition of $200 billion of GE Capital assets, its pending $13 billion acquisition of Alstom's Thermal, Renewables and Grid businesses, and the $18 billion sale of its remaining 49% interest in NBCUniversal to Comcast); PepsiCo ($21 billion joint acquisitions of The Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas, advisor on its $5.4 billion acquisition of Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods in Russia, and advisor on the creation of a three-way beverage joint venture in Mexico); United Rentals (several strategic and balance sheet assignments and its $4.2 billion acquisition of RSC Holdings); NewsCorp (advisor on its $6 billion acquisition of Dow Jones, advisor on the $9.0 billion spinoff of its publishing assets and advisor on its acquisitions of Shine Media and (pending) Harlequin Enterprises). Additionally, Mr. Effron has assisted in multiple transactions for Conagra Foods, Pfizer, Fifth & Pacific and Ralph Lauren among other clients. Other selected assignments while at Centerview include advising Time Warner Cable on its pending $79 billion merger with Charter Communications, InBev on its $52 billion acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, Lorillard on its $27 billion sale to Reynolds American and related $7 billion divestiture to Imperial Tobacco, Hillshire Brands' on its pending $8.6 billion acquisition by Tyson Foods, Blackstone on its $2 billion buyout of Pinnacle Foods, and Campbell on its $850 million sale of Godiva Chocolates. Earlier in his career, notable transactions where Mr. Effron advised include assisting Gillette on its $57 billion sale to Procter & Gamble, advising Unilever on its $24 billion acquisition of Bestfoods, assisting Nabisco Holdings and Nabisco Group Holdings on their respective sales to Kraft for $19 billion and RJ Reynolds Tobacco for $10 billion, advising Diageo on its $10 billion sale of Pillsbury to General Mills and on its purchase of Seagram's wine and spirits business for $8 billion, and advising Keebler Foods on its $4 billion sale to Kellogg. Mr. Effron currently sits on the boards of trustees of The Council on Foreign Relations, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum, New Visions for Public Schools and Partnership for New York City. He also sits on the advisory board of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative affiliated with the Brookings Institution. He holds a BA from Princeton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Mr. Effron lives in New York City with his wife and three children.