- Insider's Banker of the Week series appears in our weekday finance newsletter, 10 Things on Wall Street.
- This week we're featuring Naveen Nataraj, senior managing director, Evercore.
- He led at least nine big-ticket transactions in 2021 that amassed almost $60 billion in enterprise value.
Naveen Nataraj is no stranger to success on Wall Street, having been one of Insider's leading rainmakers this year.
He cobbled together at least nine big-ticket transactions in 2021 that amassed almost $60 billion in enterprise value. This included advising Athenahealth on its $17 billion sale to Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman in November, and he also worked with Nuance on a nearly $20 billion sale to Microsoft in April last year. Nataraj also quarterbacked cybersecurity firm NortonLifeLock's roughly $8.5 billion merger with digital-security firm Avast last August.
This year, he helped Vocera Communications in its $3 billion sale to Stryker in January, and in March, Nataraj advised healthcare firm Intelligent Medical Objects in its sale to investor Thomas H. Lee Partners for about $1.6 billion.
Nataraj remains universally regarded not just as a heavy rainmaker, but he's known for his ability to navigate clients — especially tech-adjacent companies — throughout times of duress, according to people familiar with the banker.
What's telling here is that Nataraj, according to peers, is a key cog in Evercore's ability to play in the same sandbox as Wall Street's most cashed-up banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
Evercore, a boutique shop lacking the balance sheet prowess of its bulge-bracket competitors, has finished 7th, 5th, and 4th in Dealogic's M&A league tables for the last three years.
And Nataraj's client relationships — nurtured over a 20-year career at the bank — and his ability to cover a "wide breadth" of sectors are a major factor in Evercore's success, said one person familiar with Nataraj.
The Banker of the Week series is featured in Insider's 10 Things on Wall Street — sign up here to get the newsletter each weekday morning.