Robey Warshaw, the boutique advisory firm that has worked on some of the UK’s largest deals, reported its lowest profits since its founding six years ago as Brexit took a toll on dealmaking.
The group has become one of the key deal advisers in the City of London and made its founders — Simon Robey, Simon Warshaw and Philip Apostolides — into some of the highest-earning bankers in London, with profits of £207m since they set up Robey Warshaw in 2013.
But a relatively quiet dealmaking period in 2019, marred by uncertainty over Brexit, dragged on the group’s fees in the 12 months to March 2020, according to their latest accounts.
Turnover fell 55 per cent to £26.6m while pre-tax profit fell by more than 60 per cent to £17.9m, according to the accounts filed on Monday.
The advantage of running a boutique firm is that the partners — who employ just 13 people — can still take home a significant sum even in a less busy period.
The trio split the near £18m in profits between them with Sir Simon, the former senior Morgan Stanley investment banker, receiving £10m, down from the £27m he made the year before.
The accounts do not reflect the crucial period since March 2020 when government-mandated lockdowns to curb the spread of coronavirus put a halt to dealmaking. Activity has since staged a recovery, but was still down year on year.
In the UK Robey Warshaw has earned a reputation as the most successful boutique adviser. It has helped on deals including the £79bn takeover of SABMiller by Anheuser-Busch InBev and US cable group Comcast’s £30.6bn takeover of UK broadcaster Sky.
More recently, it acted as an adviser to the London Stock Exchange Group on its $27bn acquisition of data provider Refinitiv as well as the subsequent defence from a hostile takeover bid by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing.
Over the past year Robey Warshaw worked on a £7.2bn bid for UK-based insurer RSA by Canadian insurance group Intact and Denmark’s Tryg, among other smaller deals.