[ by Melanie Gretchen ] UBS looked to a veteran deal maker when appointing a co-head of mergers and acquisitions in America, the Swiss bank said in an internal memorandum on Tuesday.  Laurence Grafstein arrives from Rothschild, where he was a co-head of mergers and acquisitions and was most recently an executive vice chairman. Prior to joining one of the world's largest independent financial advisory groups, Mr. Grafstein worked at Lazard and Credit Suisse, where he served as the co-head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications  and the global head of Telecommunications.  [C-I Note: You may also recognize him as was part of the investor group that sold The New Republic, the American political magazine, to Chris Hughes, the onetime Facebook executive, earlier this year.] At UBS, he will be a Managing Director.  From his base in New York, he will work with the other co-head, Marc-Anthony Hourihan.  They will report to Steve Cummings, the chairman of the Americas investment banking department.  In the memo, Mr. Cummings expounded on some of Mr. Grafstein's experience in the industry:

"In his more than 20 years on Wall Street, Larry has advised on approximately $600 billion of completed advisory transactions.  Recently he has advised Comverse on its pending merger with Verint and its spin-off of CNS; Sprint on the restructuring of its relationship with Clearwire; Level 3 in its merger with Global Crossing; Creative Artists Agency on its strategic partnership with TPG; the governments of Canada and Ontario on their investments in General Motors and Chrysler; Essilor on its acquisition of FGX; and Bitstream on its spin-off of MSDH and combination with Monotype."

C-I Note: In other words, UBS thinks it is in good hands. For further details, go to [Dealbook, 8/21/12].