Awards for Excellence 2014: Best independent investment bank

Best independent investment bank:

Lazard

As the recovery in mergers and acquisitions activity accelerated at the start of this year, much attention focused on the growing prominence of small, boutique advisers working on many of the biggest and most complex deals alongside the integrated universal banks. 

Few of these boutiques are any more than vehicles for high-profile individual dealmakers to monetize networks of relationships with corporate CEOs built up over decades, advising them from inside the big firms.