格林希尔 Greenhill 发表评论(0) 编辑词条

 In 1996, Robert F. Greenhill, former head of Smith Barney and former president of Morgan Stanley, struck out on his own and founded an eponymous boutique firm. The founder sat atop his profitable hill for 11 years, before stepping down from his CEO post in October 2007. Handing the reins to new co-CEOs Scott Bok and Simon Borrows, Greenhill said he would remain chairman of the firm.

Greenhill calls itself “a unique investment firm,” and to be sure, it follows a model that’s quite unlike the structure of its behemoth competitors. At Greenhill, independence is the guiding philosophy—because it is not part of a larger financial institution, the firm can avoid getting snarled in conflicts of interest (nor do its managing directors answer to anyone but themselves). Greenhill’s second rule is focus. It has no research, trading or lending divisions to distract from its advisory work.

Thanks to the firm’s tiny size, it can also afford more transparency than most on Wall Street. In January 2007, Greenhill President Scott Bok told the press that there’s no heated whispering about year-end bonuses at Greenhill. Instead, the firm writes a detailed memo that explains each managing director’s bonus, and every MD receives a copy of the memo. “It’s a strange policy,” Bok admitted. “But it works.” Greenhill went public in 2004 but remains closely held by its managing directors. Many of these MDs are former Morgan Stanley bankers who knew Greenhill during his 30-year tenure there. The firm is headquartered in New York, with additional offices in Dallas, Toronto, London, Frankfurt and San Francisco.