With its Breakthrough Deals of the Year Awards for 2001, Thomson Financial names Lehman Brothers as its Bank of the Year.

Sam Chapin and Kevin Watts, co-heads of Merrill Lynch’s global investment banking group, shared the Banker of the Year award.

Corporate M&A Officer of the Year was given to Northrop Grumman Corp.’s vice president and treasurer, Albert Myers.

“Lehman Brothers not only managed to bring its trading and investment banking business back to full speed in short order when it was forced from its World Financial Center offices on September 11” said Ron Cooper, editor in chief of Investment Dealers’ Digest.

“Throughout the year, Lehman also fended off much bigger rivals, particularly the commercial bank-backed investment banks, and was successful in raising its profile in both debt and equity underwriting, and did so without sacrificing earnings or resorting to laying anyone off.”

“Sam Chapin and Kevin Watts spearheaded a drive by Merrill to capture more business in high-fee areas like M&A and succeeded in jumping from fourth to second in the U.S. and globally, while also capturing the top spot in global equity and equity-linked securities,” said Cooper. “They accomplished this amidst the most far-reaching restructuring in Merrill’s history and after being displaced by the events of September 11.”

The overall Breakthrough Deal of the Year, which also won Thomson Financial’s M&A Deal of the Year award, was J.M. Smucker Co.’s US$700 million acquisition of the Jif and Crisco brands from Procter & Gamble Co. “It set the standard for innovation for 2001,” Cooper said.

A total of 12 award winners were honored at last night’s Awards Gala. In addition to the three top awards announced for the first time last night, nine other winners recently profiled in Investment Dealers’ Digest received recognition for being the ‘best of the best.’ They included:

CIBC World Markets shared an honour with Salomon Smith Barney, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs for being involved in the top technology deal of the year, Lucent Technologies’ divestiture of its Optical Fiber Solution business to Furukawa Electric Co., CommScope Inc. and Corning Inc. CIBC acted for CommScope. The top deal in the financial services area was Allianz AG’s acquisition of its outstanding stake in Dresdner Bank.