This seems kind of sudden, maybe I'm missing something. Their team was quite busy last year:
Matthew Wesley, who is currently global head of the private capital group at Jefferies, is leaving to join Moelis in the coming months to lead the bank’s global private funds advisory business, a source tells DD.
https://www.ft.com/content/41d3cfe5-bc5d-41d9-ae2d-6fe2d992fe5a
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$$$ that’s what you’re missing
But it’s still odd to see the head of a 100+ person group leave solo, to a smaller platform, with nobody following along, especially someone who was only the head for a year or so. I imagine group head at JEF paid pretty well.
He’s been the head of the group the entire time, just became official “global head” once they reorganized into the private capital group with three sub-arms.
Moelis paid the last group head a fat guarantee, and Wesley probably got something he couldn’t turn down… above what the last guy got. I also doubt he’s going to be the only one. While JEF was successful on paper, it sounded like they struggled to get the compensation sharing right between PCA and industry teams… they almost had mass departures last year but paid out retention bonuses to keep people on board. I’m sure he was paid well, but maybe he saw an issue with their model that would make it hard to retain teams. Moelis is a single P&L so everyone is rowing in the same direction.
In any case, his departure is sure to spark another round of musical chairs. Him poaching people to join Moelis, and people jumping ship to backfill his poaches.
The irony would be if he left because he thought the comp structure doesn’t allow for high retention and then nobody from JEF follows him due to JEF retaining their employees.
I mean, that’s just me speculating on other motives outside Moelis giving him a bag… which is the most likely scenario.
Even if JEF manages to retain their people, theres many groups out there that have okay performance where any guarantees are likely up. I’m sure there are a lot of people that would jump at the opportunity to work behind the guy that very quickly built the number 2 player in the space.
Should be an interesting couple of months to see how it plays out.
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