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| Right from the start, Ken Moelis wanted to build an institutional investment bank |
Banker of the year:
Ken Moelis
In the aftermath of the financial crisis hundreds of high-profile dealmakers left the big banks. Dozens and dozens of them set up their own boutique firms. Some even thrived. But how many of those refugees from the global banks built new investment banking firms of such scale and durability that they could take them public within seven years of the sub-prime debacle? Euromoney can think of one: Ken Moelis, chairman of Moelis & Co, which he founded as a US-centric boutique in July 2007 after he left UBS.
By the time Moelis took the firm public in an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in April it had a market value of $1.6 billion. The firm has advised on over $1 trillion of transactions since inception, including three of the 10 largest announced global mergers and acquisitions and four of the 10 largest announced global recapitalizations and restructurings in 2013.