BOUTIQUE INVESTMENT BANKS are not a new phenomenon. Back in the 1960s Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs would have been considered just that. But as firms grew larger, consolidated or left the industry altogether by the 1990s, the boutique investment bank had become a rare species. Evercore Partners was established in 1996 in response to the gap in the market in the US.
It is not an easy model to build, admits Eduardo Mestre, vice-chairman of Evercore. Boards of directors need to feel comfortable with who they are dealing with, and they are looking...
