PJT hiked pay - again - despite faltering revenue
PJT Partners, Paul Taubman’s boutique, had a pretty good Q1, and its pay shot up as a result. Its Q2 performance wasn’t so good, but pay hasn’t gone back down.
Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.
Revenues at PJT were up by 4% in Q2 compared to the same period last year. That was entirely due to growth in placements and interest income, where revenues rose by 134% and 154% respectively. By comparison, PJT's advisory bankers, who work M&A and restructuring, saw their revenues fall by 5%.
Weak revenues don't seem to have impacted pay, however. The boutique paid an average of $468k per head in the first half of 2024, up from $411k over the same period of 2023, an increase of 13%.
Headcount stayed relatively consistent during the quarter, too. PJT added just nine people, a less-than-1% increase, and no partners. Presumably, that number doesn’t include Morgan Stanley MD Thomas Contenay. Since the start of the year, headcount has only gone up by 12 people. PJT is hiring less: last year it added 17 people in the first half of the year, of which five were partners.
The fall in revenue was blamed on restructuring, which was the main driver of growth last year, although offset somewhat by M&A. Taubman, while lauding the “record” second quarter and six months result, looked mostly to the future, noting the bank’s high confidence in its “future growth prospects.”
At Evercore, the big daddy of boutiques, revenues rose 38% year-on-year in the second quarter. Advisory revenues specifically were up 52%. At Moelis, revenues rose 47% overall in the same period.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. 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.)
