小型独立投行迎来春天

    人们经常把独立咨询公司称为小型企业。但就最近的情况而言，它们可一点儿也不“小”。金融数据供应商Dealogic提供的信息显示，今年初以来，小型并购咨询公司的收入占美国咨询市场、或者说投资银行咨询费的近五分之一，高于2006年的9%和2011年的13%。

    更引人注目的是，以上数据还不包括几笔大型并购交易。这些交易已经披露（但尚未完成），而且独立咨询机构在其中发挥了重要作用。比如，电信运营商威瑞森（Verizon）对移动通信公司Verizon Wireless的全面收购就由保罗•陶布曼和艾伦•施瓦茨担任顾问；多元化集团美国科氏工业集团（Koch Industries）最近斥资70亿美元收购电子连接器制造商莫仕（Molex）时聘请了拜伦•特罗特为顾问；广告公司宏盟（Omnicom）和阳狮（Publicis）最近决定合并，一位顶尖投行人士将此事称为广告行业的“分水岭”，这两家公司也分别聘请了独立机构Moelis & Company和Rothschild Group为它们提供咨询服务。

    Moelis & Company首席执行官肯•莫里斯曾在瑞士银行（UBS）投行部门工作，他说：“反常的并不是小型咨询公司本身，反常的是人们相信聘请小型咨询机构能更有效地开展工作。咨询公司、投资银行和商业银行分开发展是有原因的。只是不久之前才出现了这三者的结合体。”

    莫里斯所说的是上世纪90年代末的情况。当时，许多投行正迅速发展成为大型金融机构（比如Salomon Brothers、Dillon Read、Alex. Brown & Sons和S.G. Warburg等）。从那以后，金融人才不断地缓慢流向Moelis & Company这样的公司。现在，许多独立咨询公司的发展水平已经接近当时的那些投行，随后就被更大的金融企业吞并。其中，Perella Weinberg Partners拥有超过415名投行人士。2007年开业的Moelis & Company已经有了600人的投行团队。他们待遇更好，而且摩擦较少。

    莫里斯说：“造成这种局面的部分原因是监管，但也因为企业内部委员会有数量众多的繁琐程序。如果我聘用同一个人，他在97.8%的工作时间里都属于外部人员。我们既没有派生出新的方法，也没有完善的监管框架。”

    还有些人认为，并购活动牵涉到更多的司法程序，审查也更为严格。从著名投资人伊坎反对戴尔（Dell）私有化的过程中就能看出，这样的交易会变得多么复杂。在需要第二名顾问的情况下，独立咨询机构或许毛遂自荐了。

    小型咨询机构获得成功的另一个原因可能是臃肿的大型投行内部存在利益冲突。批评人士指出，商业机密在这些投行内部四处流传，它们的客户有时也会获悉一二，这样做的目的就是在一项并购交易中形成不同的阵营。

    一位不愿公开姓名的前顶尖投行人士说：“如果早上有位客户给你打电话说他们想转让自己的公司，那么到了下午，40封与之相关的语音邮件就会传到世界各地。”

    一位特拉华州法官曾批评巴克莱银行（Barclays）在2011年私募基金收购食品加工企业Del Monte的过程中存在利益冲突问题。天然气公司El Paso和Kinder Morgan合并时聘请了高盛（Goldman Sachs）担任顾问。去年，高盛和EI Paso被人告上法庭。特拉华州衡平法院大法官里奥•斯特莱恩评论此案时说：“虽然人们知道高盛存在利益冲突，但并没有采取足够的措施来限制高盛在这项交易中发挥作用。本案的记录让我相信，原告很有可能成功地证明不忠实的行为给这次合并带来了不利影响。”高盛没有以顾问的身份从Kinder Morgan那里得到酬劳，但它持有后者19%的股份，还拥有两个董事席位。高盛和Kinder Morgan都花钱了结了此案，但不承认自己有不当行为。

    一年来，巴克莱银行的市场份额只流失了一小部分。高盛则仍保持着龙头地位，此案过后还进一步扩大了市场份额。

    Independent advisory firms are often called boutiques. But lately there has been nothing small about them. So far this year, M&A shops have scooped up nearly a fifth of U.S. advisory revenues, or fees bankers take when they advise deals, up from 13% in 2011 and 9% in 2006, according to Dealogic.

    Even more impressive is the fact that these figures don't include several large announced (but not yet closed) deals where independent advisors played a prominent role, including Paul Taubman and Alan Schwartz's advisory roles for Verizon (VZ) in its bid to buy all of Verizon Wireless, and Byron Trott's role on Koch Industries recent $7 billion bid for Molex (MOLX). Omnicom (OMC) and Publicis each had sole independent advisors, Moelis and Rothschild, respectively, on their recent merger in what one bulge bracket banker calls a "watershed moment" for the industry.

    "The aberration isn't the boutique. The aberration is the belief that it could all be conducted more effectively under one roof." says Ken Moelis, former UBS banker and CEO of Moelis & Company. "The world developed with advisory and investment banks and commercial banks separate for a reason. It was only a short time ago that everything was put together."

    Moelis is talking about the late 1990s, when many investment banks were rapidly rolled up into large banks (think Salomon Brothers, Dillon Read, Alex. Brown & Sons, or S.G. Warburg, to name a few). Since then, there's been a slow brain drain back to the likes of Moelis. Now, many of the independent shops have grown to resemble the legacy investment banks before they were gobbled up by bigger firms. Perella Weinberg has over 415 bankers. Moelis, which opened its doors in 2007, has grown to 600 employees. They pay better, and bankers have less hassle.

    "Some of that is regulatory but also numerous bureaucratic internal committee processes," Moelis says. "If I hire that same person, 97.8% of their time will be external. We don't have derivatives or a complex regulatory framework."

    Some people also say deals are becoming more litigated and scrutinized. Icahn's agitation of the Dell (DELL) takeover shows how complicated transactions can be. Independent advisors may be nudging themselves onto deals where a second advisor is needed.

    But another reason for boutiques' success may be that larger, unwieldy banks are conflicted. Critics say secrets are traded around the bank, and sometimes to other clients, in order to be on several sides of a deal.

    "You get a call from a client in the morning that they want to sell themselves, and by the afternoon, 40 voicemails have shipped around the world," says an ex-bulge bracket banker who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    A Delaware judge criticized Barclays (BCS) for its conflicted role on Del Monte's 2011 buyout. Goldman Sachs's (GS) role on advising El Paso on its merger with Kinder Morgan and El Paso played out in court last year. Delaware chancellor Leo Strine said about the deal, "Although Goldman's conflict was known, inadequate efforts to cabin its role were made." He continued: "The record thus persuades me that the plaintiffs have a reasonable likelihood of success in proving that the Merger was tainted by disloyalty." Goldman wasn't paid as an investment bank advisor for Kinder Morgan, but owned 19% of the shares and had two board seats. Both Goldman and Kinder Morgan made financial concessions to settle the case, but did not admit to wrongdoing.

    Yet Barclays has lost only a small amount of market share over the past year. Goldman continues to top the charts and has gained market share since that judgment.