UK dealmaker Robey tops £100m in pay since leaving Morgan Stanley
Latest results for Robey Warshaw show M&A trio earned £48m last year
Simon Robey has personally earned more than £100m since leaving Morgan Stanley to start a rival corporate advisory firm that has worked on some of the biggest UK mergers and acquisitions.
An FT analysis of five years of results from Robey Warshaw, the 13-person firm he runs with two partners, shows that profits paid out to the former senior Morgan Stanley investment banker have reached £104.6m.
Total profits to the firm’s three partners reached £189.1m in that period, meaning Sir Simon’s colleagues — ex-UBS banker Simon Warshaw and former Morgan Stanley banker Philip Apostolides — have divided the remaining £84.5m.
The results make the trio some of London’s highest earning bankers over that time and highlight why several veteran investment bankers have taken their prized Rolodexes from Wall Street institutions and set up their own private advisory firms.
In the UK Robey Warshaw has emerged as the most successful of these so-called advisory kiosks, winning several high-profile FTSE 100 advisory mandates on large scale takeovers.
That work has typically flowed to top investment banks such as Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase, which are staffed with teams of bankers. But the smaller kiosks led by dealmakers with senior corporate relationships have been able to nibble away at their dominance and land blockbuster payouts for their work.
Other successful examples include firms started in New York by ex-Citigroup banker Michael Klein and former Goldman Sachs banker Gordon Dyal.
Most recently, Robey Warshaw has been advising the London Stock Exchange Group on its $27bn acquisition of data provider Refinitiv and the subsequent defence of the LSE from a hostile takeover bid by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing.
The FT calculation for Sir Simon’s earnings include his most recent payout of £27.7m in the year to the end of March 2019, up from £12.1m a year ago.
That figure was released in Robey Warshaw’s most recent annual accounts, which provides a breakdown of the sum “provisionally attributable to the Member with the largest entitlement to profit for the year” without making direct reference to Sir Simon.
Sir Simon has the largest stake in the firm and is the member in question, the FT understands. Robey Warshaw declined to comment.
The firm’s full-year profits climbed to £48.4m in the year to the end of March, up from £21.3m. Turnover in the period rose to £60m from £29.6m.
The Robey Warshaw partnership is not liable for any tax due on profits, the filing states, adding that each man must settle any liabilities arising from his share of the profits.
The latest results do not include pay from Robey Warshaw’s work on the LSE deal, instead it captures fees earned from its work advising US cable group Comcast on its £30.6bn takeover of UK broadcaster Sky.
Other Robey Warshaw deals from last year included the £2.2bn takeover of Zoopla Property Group by US buyout firm Silver Lake and BP’s $10.5bn acquisition of US shale assets from mining group BHP.
Sir Simon left Morgan Stanley in 2012 where he spent the previous 25 years and built a reputation as one of the City’s top advisers.
He partnered with Sir Simon Robertson, a former Goldman Sachs banker, to form Robertson Robey Associates in 2013. Mr Warshaw joined them later that year. Mr Robertson split from the group in 2014, leaving Sir Simon and Mr Warshaw to rebrand the firm.
Sir Simon, former chairman of the Royal Opera House, was knighted in 2016 for services to music.