PWP is cutting 12 partners while hiring London's "highest earning banker"

As we observed in Morning Coffee today, Perella Weinberg Partners (PWP) is cutting people. Bloomberg reports that 10% of its workforce is going, including 12 partners out of an apparent 81 in total. 

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PWP declined to comment for this article, but the cuts aren't entirely surprising. Net income at the firm fell 91% year-on-year in the first quarter. Bloomberg observes that PWP's particular strength is energy investment banking, and there have not been many energy deals as a result of the geopolitical situation. PWP also has a habit of culling staff every three years: similar cuts happened mid-year in 2023 and in 2020, when it gutted its TMT team. The layoffs were foreseeable.

While PWP is cutting its own inactive rainmakers, though, it is adding up to eight senior expensive bankers in the UK, including a man historically known as the highest earning banker in London. Tim Shacklock.

Shacklock is founder and chairman of Gleacher Shacklock, the boutique British bank which PWP announced that it's acquiring several weeks ago. In 2003, Shacklock was declared London's highest paid banker after being paid £26m to run Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's corporate finance business, equivalent to £65m ($87m) at today's prices. After leaving Dresdner, Shacklock joined US boutique Gleacher and thus formed Gleacher Shacklock.

Gleacher Shacklock did not respond to a request to comment for this article. It's not clear how much PWP is paying to buy it and its people. Recently filed accounts show that partners at Gleacher Shacklock shared £13m for the year ending March 2025, while a further 28 staff shared £7m in pay between them (£250k each).

PWP's Gleacher acquisition is expected to close later this year. Observers in the London market have mixed opinions on the deal. One senior banker said Gleacher Shaclock is a "small niche player" with a solid track record, particularly on infrastructure deals and that it looks like a "sensible tuck-in acquisition for PWP." However, another suggested PWP appeared to have been motivated by Evercore's acquisition of Robey Warshaw last year and said Gleacher Shacklock is not equivalent. "This is a great way for people at Gleacher to cash out at the end of their careers," he suggested archly.

Gleacher Shacklock's most desirable London employee may not be Shacklock himself but Dominic Lee, its chief executive who joined from Goldman Sachs in 2016. Lee is likely to be one of the key beneficiaries of the PWP acquisition. PWP will presumably also want to keep the likes of Martin Falkner, head of the all-important infrastructure business, who began his career at BZW back in 1987.

While it spends the next year digesting its expensive London hires, PWP may in the mood to add junior staff elsewhere after saving money on its partners globally. However, this presumes that the remaining 69 partners will do some deals. The pipeline is reportedly full; it's just that nothing much is moving.

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