Boutique bank PJT hit the brakes on pay – at $860k
Paul Taubman’s boutique investment bank, PJT Partners, posted its Q2 results today. Despite record revenue numbers that beat last year’s record numbers, the bank doesn’t seem to have treated its bankers better for it.
Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.
Accrued compensation spending at PJT in the first half of 2025 was a very healthy $430k per person. That figure is below last year’s $468k per head, but higher than the $410k pay per head accrued in the first half of 2023. PJT is a very well-paying bank.
It's not clear why the average pay accrual declined this year. PJT employs 1,155 people in total, and made a net addition of 13 new staff in Q2. None were partners, who earn considerably more than the rest. This may have had a marginal effect on the average.
The decrease in pay came despite a 13% year-on-year increase in overall revenue in the second quarter, and a 15% increase in advisory revenue specifically in the same period. Net income attributable to shareholders (profit) increased by 16% over the period.
Equivalent figures for the first half of the year were not quite as high. Advisory revenue specifically increased by 6%. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, posted advisory revenue increases of 2% and 16% across the first half of the year, respectively. PJT's bankers outperformed Goldman's, at least.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)
