The 10 top boutique investment banks, and what they pay
2025 has been a topsy turvy year for investment banks. The Trump administration has sent market sentiment up, down, and sideways – a situation which is not good for investment banks. Most investment banks, at least.
A boutique investment bank is an investment bank that has a niche. Due to how capital markets work, it’s impractical for a small bank to underwrite debt or equities, and so a boutique investment bank exclusively offers one banking service: M&A advisory. Many, however, also have restructuring or asset management side hustles.
So, what is the biggest boutique bank in the world? Data from market intelligence firm Dealogic informed the results below. We’ve sorted the ten biggest boutique investment banks in the world, ranked by the amount of money Dealogic said they made in the first half of 2025 in M&A fees – because what else would you judge them by?
Centerview Partners
According to Dealogic, Centerview Partners is the most successful boutique investment bank of 2025. The privately-owned boutique bank pulled in $711m in M&A revenue in the first half of the year, with its best-known niches being in healthcare and services. Being privately-owned, Centerview doesn’t have publicly disclosed global pay figures, but in London it paid £261k ($327k) per head to staff on average. Its 60-ish partners global are also likely eyeing a huge payout, assuming its rumoured $10bn IPO manifests.
Houlihan Lokey
Houlihan Lokey pulled in $502m in M&A revenue in the first half of 2025, according to Dealogic. Houlihan Lokey is more of a middle-market bank than a true boutique, but it’s about as good as a middle-market bank gets, Jefferies aside. It paid a very respectable $147k per head to its 2,677 global employees in the second quarter of 2025, and $564k per head to its employees for its last financial year (which ended in March 2025).
Evercore
Evercore is generally considered the big daddy of boutique banks, but according to Dealogic, it’s had a slow start to the year: just $459m in global revenue. It paid exceptionally well in 2024, at around $830k per head, and its 2025 Q2 results showed that it’s paid $412k per head this year so far, so pay will likely stay high. It’s an expanding bank, though: it recently acquired London-based Robey Warshaw, a fellow boutique, to bump its London footprint.
Moelis & Co
Moelis was the fourth most performant boutique bank of H1 2025. Founded by UBS’s former head of investment banking, Ken Moelis – who led the bank from 2000 until 2025 – Moelis pulled in $334m in revenue in the first half of 2025, according to Dealogic. [Ken] Moelis paid his bankers around $640k per head for 2024, and has paid them $351k each so far in 2025, suggesting that pay for this year is on track to increase compared to last.
Qatalyst Partners
According to Dealogic, the fifth-best boutique investment bank in H1 was Qatalyst Partners. Founded by Frank Quattrone and known primarily as an intensely tech-focused boutique, Qatalyst Partners pays eye-wateringly well. For its latest set of accounts in the UK, those for 2023, Qatalyst paid £1.1m ($1.5m) per head to its 11-person strong team there. Oh – and it paid even better historically.
William Blair
William Blair, much like Houlihan Lokey, is another one of those banks that straddles the line between boutique and middle market firm. William Blair is 100% employee-owned, a structure with some positives and some negatives – but no annual report. Its London-based subsidiary, which employed 215 people across 2024, were paid an average of £323k ($434k) for their work. William Blair was voted the best boutique bank to work for in the world in our 2023 Ideal Employer Report.
PJT Partners
PJT Partners was judged by Dealogic to be the seventh best boutique bank in the world, with revenues of $191m in the first half of 2025. Its performance in the first half of the year was an improvement on last year (which was a record in itself), but the bank did not increase pay significantly as a consequence – in fact, pay fell, from $468k to $430. At those sums, however, perhaps you don’t mind so much - average pay for 2024 ended up being $903k.
Perella Weinberg Partners
PWP pulled in $142m in the first half of 2025, by Dealogic’s calculations, enough to put it eighth among global boutiques. The bank had a wild start to 2025, with revenues swinging up 107% in the first quarter and down 43% in the second. It managed to end the first half of the year down just 2% as a consequence. It’s unlikely that anyone will complain at the firm: the bank paid $1.1m per head globally in 2024.
Gordon Dyal & Co
Gordon Dyal & Co. was founded by Gordon Dyal, a former co-chair of investment banking at Goldman Sachs (and also former global head of M&A, among other roles). He left Goldman and launched his eponymous boutique in 2016, and has landed some huge deals since. The firm is rather secretive, but according to FINRA registrations, has around 30 bankers on its books. Its whale-hunting exploits placed it as the ninth-best boutique in the world, according to Dealogic, beating out firms such as Rothschild and Lazard.
Clearwater
Clearwater rounded out the global top ten, according to Dealogic, with revenues in H1 of $32m. A Birmingham-based bank with substantial European offices, it paid its 112 UK-based employees an average of £83k ($112k) each.
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