“The best people in the world” want to work at his bank, Ken Moelis thinks
Do you need to be convinced to move jobs to a boutique investment bank? We don’t think so. Legendary dealmaker (and founder of boutique bank Moelis & Co.) Ken Moelis doesn’t think so either: in fact, it’s all quite self-evident if you already work in the industry.
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Speaking to analysts on the firm’s Q4 investor call, Moelis mused on what has attracted people to work for his firm.
“There was a major bank that two weeks ago announced they were shutting down their entire investment bank,” Moelis said, presumably in reference to HSBC. “Bankers are starting to see… and realize that being independent, not having the conflicts and the problems of being a regulated financial institution, is the best.” That “regulatory crunch”, as Moelis calls it, “makes people available.”
Aside from the job security, it’s also about the more personal touch of working in a smaller team. “The best people in the world tend to want to come to an independent firm in which creativity and intellectual talent is highly recognized,” Moelis said. “That’s where a lot of talent comes from.”
While there’s definitely an element of “Elon Musk says Twitter will be a trillion-dollar company,” (he actually said this) there’s one thing that Moelis didn’t say explicitly, but should be very obvious: boutiques pay their people much better than Wall Street banks do.
In 2024, average pay at Evercore, PJT Partners, and PWP was $829k, $903k, and $1.1m respectively (although PWP does have an asterisk next to it). Moelis itself paid a more modest $639k per head during that year. By comparison, the highest paying “regular” investment banks in the world don’t average above $400k per head, as our 2024 compensation report showed.
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