Will Perella need juniors? Maybe not
Former Merrill Lynch banker Philip Yates is the latest big name to climb in bed with Wall Street legend Joseph Perella. Will they be inviting juniors to join them?
Noel Marshall, managing director at recruitment firm Finance Professionals, says maybe not. "I haven't heard anything about junior hiring," says Marshall. "It's logical to think it would happen, but they seem to have a slightly different model to the norm."
Marshall says the strategy for Perella's new and as yet unnamed corporate finance boutique appears predicated on having a herd of hefty senior originators (Yates' bedfellows include Bernard Gault, one of Morgan Stanley's leading dealmakers and Peter Weinberg, a high-profile banker from Goldman Sachs), and little in the way of junior execution talent.
The outfit also looks slightly unusual in that it is targeting big deals which are usually the preserve of the large investment banks, rather than the small and mid-market deals preferred by other boutiques.
"Given the scale of the transactions they're trying to do, they would have to build a huge execution team," says Marshall. "But somehow, I don't see it happening: none of the names that have joined Perella are big man-managers and I can't see them spending their time on juniors."
Instead, he speculates that 'Perella & Co.' may try something more improvisational and sub-contract the execution side of deal-making to someone else. "They could use the corporate finance team at somewhere like PricewaterhouseCoopers," he says. "Or HSBC has a huge execution team that isn't executing. I'm sure they'd be willing to help out for a small fee."
