LONDON - They could call themselves the three Simons of investment banking.
Simon Warshaw, who announced his departure from UBS two weeks ago, will team up with Simon Robey, a former Morgan Stanley banker, and Simon Robertson, a longtime banker and former chairman of Rolls-Royce Group, the bankers said in a statement on Thursday.
Mr. Robertson, 72, left Goldman Sachs in 2005 as its European president to set up his own advisory firm and was joined by Mr. Robey at the beginning of this year. With the arrival of Mr. Warshaw, the three will set up an advisory firm at which Mr. Robertson will be nonexecutive chairman.
The new firm will allow Mr. Warshaw, 47, and Mr. Robey, 53, to advise clients on corporate finance, decisions on strategy and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Robertson can focus on his existing clients, his handful of nonexecutive director roles, including at HSBC and The Economist Newspaper Ltd., and his work as a trustee for the Royal Opera House endowment fund.
Mr. Warshaw left UBS less than a month after the he helped Vodafone seal a $130 billion deal, one of the largest in history, to sell its stake in Verizon Wireless to its longtime partner Verizon Communications. But his departure was widely anticipated and came after 27 years at the Swiss bank.
Mr. Robey, one of Europe’s most prominent deal advisers, left Morgan Stanley as co-chairman of global mergers and acquisitions. His clients included BAE Systems, BP and the London Stock Exchange. Mr. Robey is the chairman of the Royal Opera House’s board of trustees and almost became an opera singer after training as a bass-baritone.
