Centerview pay in London: up 20% for partners, down 40% for the rest
Boutique bank Centerview has been having a pretty good time recently. It’s even contemplating a $10bn IPO that would make its 60 or so already-rich partners even richer. But the good times are not being shared equally.
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Centerview Partners UK LLP, the firm’s London-based subsidiary, posted accounts earlier today for the year ending 31 March 2024. The headline figures are good: revenue was up a healthy 6% year-on-year and operating profits up even more dramatically, by 21%.
The good news is that this has translated into better pay – for the bank’s members (UK legal jargon for partners in a partnership), of which there were eight. The bank distributed £6.9m ($8.7m) in remuneration per head, a 22% increase on the £5.6m ($7.1m) per head distributed in 2023. The bad news is that the increased operating profit didn’t just come from increased revenue – Centerview cut expenses quite significantly.
Wages and salaries for “normal” employees at the firm fell by 32%, while headcount rose from 53 to 57. Average pay per head for the boutique’s staff therefore went from a meteoric £413k ($519k) to a mere £261k ($327k).
The pay cut is probably a tough one to swallow. Centerview has gone from strength to strength recently, climbing the M&A league tables to displace rival boutiques such as Evercore and PJT as well as universal banks such as Barclays and UBS. Even a potential IPO overwhelmingly benefits its partners anyway. Tough luck.
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