1800s: Early history Rothschild was founded in the
City of London in 1811. The largest independent firm,
Lazard, got its start in 1848 and only went public in 2005 under the leadership of
Bruce Wasserstein, who unified its disparate branches.
1980s: New players established In September 2015 the
FT wrote, "The concept of an advisory boutique dates back to the 1980s, when some of Wall Street’s biggest names ditched established banks to set up their own firms — often after legendary bust-ups.
Peter Peterson and
Stephen Schwarzman quit
Lehman Brothers after an epic power struggle to start the
Blackstone Group in 1985. Blackstone started out as an M&A advisory firm before branching out into private equity investing, a formula that made both men billionaires. A few years later,
Bruce Wasserstein and
Joseph Perella left
First Boston and created
Wasserstein Perella. In 2006 Perella co-founded
Perella Weinberg Partners, with Peter Weinberg, then of Goldman Sachs."
Greenhill was also founded in 1996. In March 2012 the
FT wrote, "a long-term and fundamental trend is coming back to the fore: the perennial fight between smaller boutique advisers and their
bulge-bracket rivals has picked up pace." In March 2013
Fortune wrote of the purported competitive advantages independent advisory firms face. However, many have diversified into other areas such as asset management. In March 2015 the
Financial Post wrote, "in a coup that grabbed headlines ...
Centerview Partners and another U.S. independent advisory firm,
Lazard, shut out the majors in the year’s biggest deal [until that point]: the US$75 billion merger of
Kraft Foods and
H.J. Heinz". Hugh McGee of
Barclays (formerly
Lehman Brothers), who earned a $13m bonus in 2013, told the FT in September 2015 that “between regulatory compliance and internal bureaucracy I found myself spending 80 per cent of my time on non-client activities, which is really not fun”. == Notable firms ==