Difference between Private Equity and Merchant Banking?

You may be surprised to hear that a lot of people consider merchant banking and private equity to be virtually the same thing. Merchant banking gets its name from investors putting up money and taking on risk to fund merchant ships. There may be some difference between specific PE firms and merchant banks but broadly speaking it’s the same thing

Interested as well

A merchant bank really is a hybrid IB and PE firm. They do both advisory and investing

Always been interested in the concept, but wonder if it's mostly IB with some select investing on the side. I'm sure it varies a lot by shop.

If anyone has experience, I'd love to hear about it.

GS Merchant Banking is literally just their direct private equity arm

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Merchant banks (BDT is the first one that comes to mind) are really hybrids between investment banks and private equity funds. Some also might have additional services too (BDT also has a HNW/PW advisory focus too, where they advise very wealthy families on various things).

Since BX started out as an advisory firm (PJT) and did PE investing as the second business, would their original business model count as merchant banking?