NEW YORK, Nov. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today The Deal, a business unit of TheStreet (NASDAQ: TST), announced the winners of the eighth annual Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers (MACD) Awards, which recognize the best corporate dealmaking teams at acquisitive, large-cap U.S. companies in ten industry groups. Each year, winners are selected from major S&P industry groups and through a survey of The Deal's audience. Voters determine which candidate in each industry excelled in overall M&A strategy based on the criteria of strategy, choice of targets, deal execution and team skill.

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"Given the record-setting pace of M&A this year, our voters had a lot of significant transactions to sift through. Being recognized by your peers for outstanding work in this environment is a tremendous accomplishment," said Jeffrey Kanige, Editor in Chief of The Deal and TheStreet.com.

The following companies were recognized and honored as winners:

Chemicals: Eastman Chemical Company for its $2.8 billion acquisition of Taminco Corp., a specialty chemical company that was majority-owned by Apollo Group. The deal was accretive to earnings and led to increased sales revenue.

Consumer: Berry Plastics Corporation for completing nearly 40 deals in the past quarter century, expanding the company and growing revenues. Berry's purchase of Rexam's Healthcare Containers and Closures business contributed to its 7% increase in sales in the past fiscal year.

Energy: Kinder Morgan for a giant merger of several Kinder Morgan companies that created the largest pipeline corporation in North America. Kinder Morgan acquired Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, Kinder Morgan Management and El Paso Pipeline Partners in a transaction valued at $76 billion.

Financial: TIAA-CREF for expanding its assets with the purchase of Nuveen Investments for $6.25 billion. The deal added scale and diversification to TIAA-CREF's investment offerings, along with additional distribution opportunities. It also brought TIAA-CREF an additional $221 billion in assets under management.

Healthcare: Merck & Co., Inc. for making several deals to beef up its pharmaceutical portfolio, including a $9.5 billion acquisition of Cubist Pharmaceuticals. With Cubist, Merck was able to strengthen its antibiotics portfolio. Merck also acquired Idenix Pharmaceuticals for $3.85 billion, obtaining a promising portfolio of hepatitis C drug candidates.

Manufacturing: Alcoa Inc. for strengthening its aerospace portfolio with the $2.85 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of Firth Rixson, a jet engine component manufacturer based in the U.K. The acquisition was expected to add $1.6 billion in revenues, and also enabled Alcoa to cut costs.

Retail: Burger King Corporation for getting into the breakfast business with its $11 billion acquisition of coffee and donut chain Tim Hortons. Now known as Restaurant Brands International, the combined company operates more than 18,000 restaurants with $23 billion in sales in 100 countries, making it the third-largest fast-food chain.

Technology: Google for making a large investment outside of its traditional business with the $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest Labs, a home monitoring device company. Google made numerous other smaller acquisitions, including the purchase of Skybox Imaging, a company that provides satellite imagery for Google Maps and DeepMind Technologies, an artificial intelligence firm.

Telecommunications: AT&T for buying DirecTV in a $67 billion deal, a transaction that according to AT&T's CEO, would redefine the video entertainment business. DirecTV gave AT&T a new method to distribute content, along with its wireless and broadband network. AT&T also became the second-largest pay-TV company and expanded to 70 million fixed-broadband customer locations.

Utilities: NRG Energy, Inc. for continuing to power forward, outfitting hotels and pro-football stadiums with solar panels, and building charging stations for electric vehicles. NRG added significant generating capacity when it completed its $2.6 billion acquisition of Edison Mission Energy.

Winners will be recognized at an awards luncheon during The Deal's annual forecasting conference, The Deal Economy Event: Predictions & Perspectives for 2016, on December 3, 2015 in New York City.

To learn more about the winners, please watch this short video or read this news article.

About the MACD Survey:
The Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers Survey, now in its eighth year, relies on an industry peer voting process to determine which major U.S. dealmakers qualify as the best all-around dealmakers in ten industry groups. The Deal's readers are asked to identify outstanding candidates based on overall strategy, demonstrated skill of the deal team, proficiency at identifying value, execution and diversification. The survey assesses corporate dealmaking effectiveness over the past calendar year of transaction history as reported by The Deal's transaction information service.

About The Deal
The Deal is a media and technology company providing over 100,000 users with actionable ideas from its two services - The Deal & BoardEx. Law firms, investment banks, private equity firms and hedge funds use The Deal service to find their next deal and BoardEx to connect the dots between their organizations and clients. The Deal is a business unit of TheStreet, Inc. and has offices in New York, London, Washington, D.C., Petaluma, CA and Chennai, India. For more information, visit www.thedeal.com.

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