Looking back on a year marked by "mind-boggling" changes in the investment banking industry, the editors of Investment Dealers' Digest recognized four Morgan Stanley-led transactions among its top deals of 2008. The results appeared in the January 19 issue.

The Firm took the top spot in the private-equity, media, telecom and real-estate categories. In those honored deals:

Morgan Stanley acted as the lead M&A advisor to Bain and THL in the $26.7bn acquisition of Clear Channel Communications Inc.

Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reuters in the $18.3bn merger of Thomson Corporation and Reuters Group PLC.

Morgan Stanley acted as lead financial advisor to Clearwire in the US$14.5bn merger of Clearwire and Sprint 4G Assets.

Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Gramercy/American Financial Gramercy Capital Corp., a real estate investment trust, in the US$3.3bn acquisition of American Financial Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust.

Noting the "trying year," the editors underscored the dealmakers' focus on creativity, deal size, hurdles overcome and the impact on a sector or marketplace in determining the list. For the editors, the linchpin was "a willingness to go back to the well to solve a problem and create a solution for a client/situation that often is without precedent."

That problem-solving acumen was evident in the Clear Channel transaction, notable not only as the largest leveraged buyout in media industry history at the time, but also as a deal that was almost derailed because of the multiple parties and the complex deal dynamics involved. The Firm's leadership in the resolution of the transaction was noted in The Wall Street Journal.

With the private-equity firms and the banks locked in a much-publicized and contentious legal battle, Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays and CFO Randall Mays reached out to the head of each bank to broker a resolution.

As the WSJ reported, "Only John Mack rang back."

The editors highlighted the Clearwire and Sprint 4G Assets transaction for its impact on the telecom sector. The transformational transaction, which will create a new, well-capitalized wireless broadband leader, dubbed Clearwire, was, the editors said, "no small feat."

Morgan Stanley also served as one of three book runners for Clearwire's US$600mn IPO in 2006 alongside Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan.

For the editors, a key differentiator was the Firm's prowess in helping Clearwire navigate the numerous parties. "One of if not the most challenging aspect of this deal," they noted, "was getting top-tier management teams at seven blockbuster technology companies to agree."

Morgan Stanley's client focus and navigational savvy were also called into play on the Thomson-Reuters merger, a deal that created the world's largest financial-news organization and rattled the media space.

"Any transaction of this magnitude was going to bring with it complications, but joining these two behemoths carried extra hurdles in addition to just sheer size," said the editors.

With chaos in the residential and commercial real-estate markets, Morgan Stanley's work on the Gramercy deal stood out, said the editors, because of not only the challenging marketplace, but also the uniqueness of the deal. The transaction resulted in the creation of a business with a lending arm and property owner under one roof.

The acquisition transformed Gramercy from a pure specialty finance company into a diversified enterprise with complementary business lines consisting of commercial real-estate finance and property investments.