Boutiques revive a reviled industry
Consensus-shy Violy starts afresh
Schadenfreude greeted the demise earlier this year of Violy Byorum & Partners. Founder Violy McCausland’s uncompromising style had irked those inside and outside the firm. Now she’s trying again, this time on her own.
The new advisers reinventing investment banks
Start-up corporate finance and risk management advisers have a simple message: Trust us, we’re independent. Risk Capital Management Partners boss David Shimko says he tells his clients exactly how the big banks profit from their own advice. Hill Street Capital combines M&A advice with speedy lending decisions. Integrated Finance asks to get paid only what the clients think its advice is worth. New Smith Capital has attracted some big hitters from Merrill Lynch to help build its advisory business. City Capital Corporation may be small, but it can be more nimble. And Oriel Securities is learning how to woo new clients.
Senior staff at Bedlam Asset Management are not paying themselves until they hit their own performance targets. OneWorld Securities saw the 1998 Russian default as the best time to set up a hedge fund. ABS Investment Management staff left CSAM to go it alone. Gramercy Advisors is looking beyond its debt restructuring niche to become more of a mainstream money manager.
Gene Ludwig might just have created the perfect boutique in Promontory Interfinancial Network (PIN). Leaving the cold winters and long commutes of New York behind, Scalene Capital Management operates from Newport Beach, California. Are you my partner? USPowergen‘s founder Jay Worenklein has lofty ambitions. Alex Jurshevski, CEO of Recovery Partners has concentrated on the troublesome issues for banks of operational risk and credit risk management. Schechter & Co have more goals than football. Van Oss is a corporate-finance adviser who specializes in small financial services deals, principally in asset management.
The former chairman of Deutsche Bank Asia set up GEMS Management & Investment in 1998. Military interrogation skills have helped East Capital to get information out of Russian companies. Longreach Capital aims to close the gap between small firms and global players in Asian private equity. Protego is a defiantly local Mexican advisory firm.
Ex-CSFB staffer Philippe Buhannic set up TradingScreen to provide the trading plumbing to buy-side firms. Lava Trading is not an ECN or a broker dealer – it’s a good old-fashioned technology firm. Creditex started with very little capital to become an important market for single-name default swaps.
