Boutique Centerview Partners more than doubled pay for its UK employees as fees from dealmaking increased despite a broader M&A slump.
The US-headquartered investment bank paid out £21.9m to its 53 UK-based employees in the year to 31 March 2023, according to newly-released accounts on Companies House. This is an average payment of £413,300 per head, up from £184,505 at the same point a year earlier.
The pay costs at Centerview in London were the highest since the boutique — launched by Blair Effron and Robert Pruzan in 2006 — started in the UK in 2009.
Centerview Partners’ UK operation brought in £75.8m in fees for the period, up from £68.1m a year earlier. The bank advises on big-ticket M&A deals alongside bigger rivals and is one of a handful of so-called elite boutiques set up by high-profile dealmakers who previously worked at bulge bracket banks.
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Centerview Partners made $1.1bn in M&A fees globally last year, according to data provider Dealogic, finishing fifth in the global revenue league tables behind four Wall Street giants and knocking Citigroup into sixth place. It topped the boutique rankings, leapfrogging long-time rival Evercore into the top spot.
Boutique banks have attracted senior dealmakers from larger rivals over the years, with many drawn by bigger pay packets, lower hierarchy and an ability to take a bigger chunk of the revenue they generate.
Centerview has added senior staff over the past year, latterly bringing in Gordon Kroft, co-head of Citigroup’s communications and media group, as a partner in New York and Barclays global co-head of software investment banking Steven Markovich.
It also named new leadership last year, appointing Tony Kim and Eric Tokat as co-presidents of investment banking in April.
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