What was comp like (Base + Bonus + Deferred) during the peak of the British Empire for M&A?
The "golden age" (pre-GFC) sky-high comp and the "silver age" (pre-DEI) comp has been discussed ad nauseum on this forum, now let's discuss the "imperial age" comp.
What was the ballpark figure for M&A advisors working in Frankfurt/London/Amsterdam/Paris in the 17th to 19th century? How much of this was cash and how much was deferred or tied up in stocks/options? During bull markets (tulip mania, manifest destiny, opium wars, conquest of British Raj, etc) what was the upside for senior M&A advisors?
To start the discussion, I'll rank the cities and banks in tiers.
Cities:
Tier 1 - Amsterdam, London
Tier 2 - Frankfurt, Paris, Antwerp
Tier 3 - Vienna, Geneva, Hamburg, Milan, St Petersburg
Tier 4 - Venice, Lisbon, Copenhagen
BBs:
Tier 1 - Bank of England, Amsterdam Wisselbank
Tier 2 - Banque de France, Deutsche Bank, Banco di San Giorgio
Tier 3 - Lombard Odier
EBs:
Tier 1 - Rothschild Banking Dynasty, Baring Brothers & Co.
Tier 2 - Hope & Co., Credit Mobilier
Tier 3 - Vienna’s Creditanstalt
Is this guy unemployed or a bot plugged into chatgpt?
This is really important information, what do you mean?
Corporate mergers just weren't really a thing until the late 19th century so you don't really have M&A advisory historically. That being said there certainly were creative ways to raise capital before corporations were even a thing. In feudal societies Lords who wanted to go on crusade would finance their journey by pledging the cash flows* from their lands to a lender (usually a monastery).
*Rents would usually be in-kind, not in actual currency or gold.
"high finance" in medieval / renaissance / victorian era has always been fascinating to me. we've obviously heard of the Rothschilds banking dynasty antics, but are there any good historical books on the subject? simply describing the methods / mechanisms etc that were used for capital intensive projects? would it have essentially been as you described, early forms of securitisation / pledging of future cash flows for up front investment / funding? assume at some point it stopped being bags of gold and moved towards fiat / notes etc? thanks
Bro just go read Tontine Coffee House or Graeber's Debt
I think back then you could just finance a corporate army sponsored by the crown which would then allow you to facilitate free "hostile takeovers" wherever you'd want.
Well Creditanstalt was Rothschild's owned and backed, but aside from that... M&A advisory only really came into it's own in the 20th century when the likes of Andre Meyer was running Lazard in NY. There was a form of advisory work done before than that but we intimately linked to bond and equity underwriting which were the revenue drivers. The majority of money-making during the "golden age" of Imperial finances were pretty basic stuff today: remittance management, gold and currency transactions, and bond underwriting/lending. I do not know how much the comp would be but the private banking houses were partnerships and so the partners would expect a % of profits, although that did come with unlimited liability.
Andrew Carnegie had a side hustle for decades as a bond broker collecting FAT placement fees/commissions. Certainly paid to be an intermediary/market maker with the spreads that existed back then
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