Bank of America Merrill Lynch Adds Two Veteran Media Advisors

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has added two veterans of the sector to its media and telecom advisory team.

Sam Powers will start this fall as head of Americas Media & Telecom Investment Banking for the investment bank, which is a unit of BofA. He had been heading up a comparable group at UBS. Randy Russell has joined as a managing director in Media & Telecom after a stint heading Americas Media & Telecom at Deutsche Bank.

“These two hires are important steps in our continuing effort to be the leading advisor to clients in the Media & Telecom space,” wrote Jack MacDonald, head of global technology, media and telecom investment Banking in a note to employees. “They bring nearly 40 years of combined industry experience and leadership to our practice.”

Powers has advised on many high-profile transactions for clients including Advance/Newhouse, CAA, TPG and Viacom. Russell will be exclusively focused on covering a number of major clients, having previously advised companies including Dish, Echostar and Verizon. Russell began his career in the United States Marine Corps.

‎”The addition of Sam and Randy to our global Media & Telecom practice reflects the significant momentum we are experiencing in this space as we continue to win key mandates and grow our market share,” MacDonald wrote.

Media M&A has reached historic levels of late. Deals such as Disney’s pending $71 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox assets and Discovery’s recent acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive are among those altering the landscape. From an advisory standpoint, navigating developments in other mega-deals such as AT&T-Time Warner and Sinclair-Tribune also can be lucrative for well-positioned firms.