LONDON: Deutsche Bank's recent failings in mergers and acquisitions could do with some BASF fertilisation.
Germany's biggest lender has so far failed to win a role on potentially the country's largest deal - the $62 billion offer by national champion Bayer for agrochemicals peer Monsanto .
To spare its blushes, Deutsche sorely needs to advise BASF on a successful counterbid. The decline of Deutsche's corporate finance franchise is evident in the league tables.
The bank is ranked a lowly 13th in terms of announced global deals for the year to date - down six places from the same period in 2015, Thomson Reuters data shows.
It's also losing clout in its vital home market: it has only managed to advise on just over a fifth of tie-ups involving German companies.
In 2014, it bagged mandates on more than half.
This slippage could be temporary. Deutsche is a bank in transition, with a mammoth and morale-sapping restructuring in train. There has been turnover among its senior rainmakers.
Longstanding head of M&A Henrik Aslaksen and Germany-focused investment banker Karl-Georg Altenburg both left last year.
New hires, including former Goldman Sachs financial sponsors banker Alasdair Warren and ex-EDF finance director Thomas Piquemal, may yet turn things round.
There's more reason to believe that Deutsche could struggle to regain its former standing, though.
The rise of corporate finance boutiques is perhaps the most serious worry.
These firms have accounted for about 30 percent of total M&A fees since 2012, according to Thomson Reuters.
That's about double the volume they reaped in 2000.
And the wave of new launches shows no sign of abating: one of Monsanto's advisers is Ducera Partners, which was formed last year from another boutique, Perella Weinberg Partners.
All told, Deutsche would benefit from helping BASF gatecrash the seeds and plant protection mash-up.
It has yet to confirm a mandate, but it has a history of advisory work for the Ludwigshafen-based company.
The catch, as Breakingviews has argued, is that BASF may be better off resisting the temptation.
The binary nature of rewards for M&A advice means investment banks are too often cheerleaders for deals that shouldn't fly.
In this case, Deutsche may have a bigger incentive than usual.
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