One of the founders of Evercore’s UK business Andrew Sibbald has left the advisory firm after being appointed co-head of Europe for private equity investor Warburg Pincus.
Sibbald was a co-founder of financial institutions group specialist Lexicon Partners before it was acquired by Evercore in 2011 to form the nucleus of the New York-listed company’s UK operations. He ended up as chairman of Evercore’s European investment banking business.
At Warburg Pincus, Sibbald will be co-head of Europe alongside Rene Obermann, who is based in Berlin. He replaces Adarsh Sarma, who will remain as a managing director and partner of the firm.
At Evercore, Sibbald advised on several major private equity transactions, including the sale of roadside services business AA to Warburg Pincus.
Obermann and Sibbald will work closely with Jim Neary, co-head of US private equity. Warburg Pincus has US$83bn under management across more than 250 portfolio companies.
Sibbald worked at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, before founding Lexicon Partners in 2000.
Evercore previously reported a 21% fall in second-quarter revenues to US$499.4m, with advisory revenues down 35% to US$375m. That was compensated for by a 183% rise in underwriting fees at its nascent ECM business to US$25m.
The firm highlighted a number of hires in its European business, including that of telecoms banker Giuseppe Monarchi as a senior managing director, with chairman John Weinberg calling the second quarter “an extraordinary time to recruit exceptional talent”.
On Thursday, Rothschild & Co, which is in the process of being taken private by its founding family, reported a 21% fall in second-quarter revenues to €349m for its core global advisory business. That was worse than the five major US banks, which saw an average 9% decline in advisory and underwriting revenues.
The Anglo-French firm blamed “lower levels of completion activity”. Executive chairman Alexandre de Rothschild said the period followed two record years. “Although the outlook is challenging, we remain confident that our group will continue to perform well in 2023,” he said.
For the first half of the year M&A revenues dropped 30% to €448m but financing advisory was up 6% to €228m, when equities business Redburn, acquired during the year, was included. Without Redburn revenues fell 8%.
Looking ahead, Rothschild said deal activity for the rest of the year would be “impacted by the level of capital markets activity, availability of financing, valuation expectations and CEO confidence” and concluded “there remains uncertainty for the remainder of the year”.