Banker suffers £25m drop in pay

A PARTNER at Robey Warshaw has seen his pay fall by £25m after profits at the Mayfair-based investment bank plunged.

The unnamed dealmaker, who took home £37m last year, saw his pay drop to £12m for the year to March 2018 after profits fell 65pc to £29.5m, filings show.

A source close to the group said it was “just a lumpy business”, with quieter years resulting in huge profit swings.

The tiny boutique is in line for a gigantic windfall in its next set of accounts after landing a key role on Comcast’s £22bn bid for Sky.

The M&A specialist, viewed as a challenger to large Wall Street banks, has landed key roles on some of the world’s biggest takeovers since it was set up by bankers Sir Simon Robey and Simon Warshaw five years ago.

These include the Skycomcast deal, the $110bn (£81bn) tie-up between drinks giant Sabmiller and rival AB Inbev, and Softbank’s £24bn takeover of British microchip company ARM Holdings. Even with its profit plunge the unnamed partner at Robey Warshaw still pockets more than almost every other financier in the City. Their salary last year was significantly higher than Goldman Sachs’s highprofile former boss Lloyd Blankfein, who took home around £17m.

The company, which is controlled by Mr Robey and Mr Warshaw, as well as a third banker Philip Apostolides, said it had 12 staff for the year to March.

In its accounts it said it predicted a “similar level of activity in 2019 as compared with the results in 2018”.