How Much Investment Banking Execs Make (Part 2)

We previously discussed what senior executives at the largest US bulge bracket banks make per public disclosures. Here we will consider what publicly traded boutique firms disclose regarding their executive pay. Evercore, Lazard, Moelis, Perella Weinberg and PJT Partners are all firms with a primary focus on investment banking services though each offers a slightly different suite of products. Let us see how their senior executive pay stacks up per public filings.

Unlike bulge bracket executive leadership, the CEOs, chairmen and managing partners at the boutiques largely appear to receive below $10 million annually. However, in many cases, these executives are the founders of their respective firms which means their equity ownership and overall net worth far outstrip the pay they receive from their executive roles. Among them, Ken Moelis is worth greater than $1 billion and many others such as Roger Altman, John Weinberg, Peter Weinberg, Navid Mahmoodzadegan and Paul Taubman are worth in the hundreds of millions. On the other hand, two of the most highly paid CEOs are Peter Orszag and Andrew Bednar, who are not firm founders -- Orszag rose up through academic and political positions and Bednar through corporate law and bulge bracket banks.

Similar to many other industries, equity ownership in an investment banking firm represents the best path to significant wealth creation. Many of these executive rose up in more traditional investment banking firms (e.g. Ken Moelis at UBS) but then took on the personal risk of building a firm around their own brand and reaped the rewards.