U.S. boutique investment bank Centerview has found an office in the heart of Paris and is hiring senior bankers to establish a second European hub as Brexit looms, three sources told Reuters.
Its target list also includes Deutsche Bank's co-head of corporate and investment banking Emmanuel Hasbanian and Barclays managing director Yann Krychowski, who specializes in financial services, the sources said. The value of French mergers and acquisitions rose 2per cent last year to US$193 billion, the third highest in the past decade, according to Refinitiv data.
Centerview ranked fourth last year for global M&A deals led by advisory boutiques with a 2.1per cent share of the overall fee pool. Lazard took the largest slice.Centerview is betting on a mix of junior and seasoned deal-makers to drive its French roll-out as it wants to become the advisor of choice for big French companies, the sources said.
The U.S. bank, co-founded by Blair Effron and Robert Pruzan, is also close to poaching two other former Lazard dealmakers, Nicolas Constant and Pierre Pasqual, the sources said.