LONDON — Robey Warshaw, a boutique advisory firm based in London, is beating the likes of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank in the UK M&A market, according to the latest rankings from Bloomberg.
According to Bloomberg’s global M&A ranking, Robey Warshaw has a market share of 20.4% in the UK, behind only Barclays, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. The firm, which has just three partners and just over a dozen staff, has advised on just three deals so far in 2018, but those deals have a combined value of more than $65 billion.
Robey Warshaw’s performance is so impressive that it is ranked 18th globally in dealmaking in 2018, with a 3.2% market share.
The boutique, founded four years ago by former Morgan Stanley and UBS bankers Sir Simon Robey and Simon Warshaw, has landed a series of huge deals in recent years.
Most recently it got a slice of the $21.7 billion deal between Vodafone and “cable cowboy” John Malone’s Liberty Global, which saw Vodafone buy up Liberty’s assets in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania.
Robey Warshaw is also involved in advising US telecoms giant Comcast on its £22 billion ($30.9 billion) bid for Sky. That deal is subject to a bidding war between Comcast and Fox for the right to buy Sky.
Another successful year
The firm appears to be going from strength to strength. Last year it brought in £72.7 million in revenue, an increase of around 70% on the previous year, after scoring roles on a series of huge takeover deals. The firm advised Reckitt Benckiser on its $17 billion offer for baby-formula maker Mead Johnson Nutrition, among others.
The performance translated to huge sums for employees.The firm paid out £8.9 million in salaries to its 13 staff members last year, giving an average pay packet of £684,000. Meanwhile, the three partners do not draw salaries but instead take a slice of the profits.
The highest earner took home £37.3 million last year, according to accounts filed in January, which is more than the firm’s total profit of £36.6 million in 2016. The partners shared a total profit pool of £63.3 million ($85.2 million) last year.
Leave a Reply
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
