Evercore Hires For New Wealth Unit

Boutique investment bank Evercore Partners launched a wealth management business led by Jeff Maurer, a former chief executive of U.S. Trust Corp.

Several portfolio managers joined Evercore as partners working in the new unit. Gary Gildersleeve, James Holihan and Sandy Panetta, are fixed income portfolio managers. John McDermott is an equity portfolio manager, John Rendinaro is operations and trading manager, and Karen Francois is client services manager. The press release adds that "Several other equity portfolio managers and wealth consultants will be joining EWM (Evercore Wealth Management) when their current employment obligations expire at the end of the year."

The business targets clients with more than $5 million in investable assets. It gives Evercore a chance to diversity its revenue stream beyond M&A advisory, private equity investing and institutional asset management. The now-depressed M&A side generated more than 90 percent of Evercore's revenue in 2007, according to Bloomberg News.

While Evercore's statement gave only Maurer's prior affiliation, Bloomberg's story says all the new team members came from Bank of America, which acquired U.S. Trust in 2007. Gildersleeve, Panetta and Holihan most recently worked at Columbia Management, Bank of America's fund management arm, according to Bloomberg. Before that, they worked at U.S. Trust. Karen Francois reportedly was head of U.S. Trust's New York City trust team.

The Bloomberg story names four other U.S. Trust executives it says will join Evercore: Christopher Zander, Jay Springer, John Apruzzese and Charlie Ryan.

Maurer spent 32 years at U.S. Trust, rising to chief executive in 2001. He left in 2003 to join Lehman's trust company unit, serving as chairman and chief executive until his departure in 2007.

Fred Taylor, U.S. Trust's former vice chairman and chief investment officer will be a senior advisor to Evercore Wealth Management, the company said.