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US investment bank Evercore has poached one of Citigroup’s most senior dealmakers, as the advisory group accelerates efforts to expand in Europe.
Luigi De Vecchi, a veteran adviser behind some of Citi’s largest continental European transactions, will join Evercore as chair of its continental European business from July.
He will also lead the firm’s effort to establish a new office in Milan, according to people familiar with the matter. De Vecchi will retain an office in Paris, a sign of the bank’s ambitions to increase its presence in key European financial centres.
His appointment marks a significant hire for Evercore, which has been steadily expanding outside its US heartland.
It also represents a notable loss for Citi, where De Vecchi spent more than a decade as one of the bank’s most senior client-facing bankers, alongside elite dealmakers such as Leon Kalvaria, Jay Collins and Manolo Falcó.
After joining from Credit Suisse in 2012, he worked on marquee deals including the €50bn merger between eyewear groups Essilor and Luxottica, LVMH’s $16bn purchase of Tiffany, and Prada’s recent €1.25bn acquisition of Versace.
De Vecchi’s departure comes as Citi’s new global banking chief, Vis Raghavan, seeks to reshape the division as part of a broader turnaround effort at the bank.
Despite its much smaller size, Evercore was ranked sixth by total deal value last year, according to data from LSEG: only two spots behind Citi. So far this year, Citi sits in fifth place while Evercore is in eighth.
Founded in 1995, Evercore has emerged over the past decade as a significant force in investment banking, overtaking rivals such as Lazard in advisory revenues. While the firm has carved out a strong position in the US, it has until recently lacked similar scale in Europe.
That changed last year when Evercore made a high-profile move into the French market, hiring three senior bankers from Lazard — Andrea Bozzi, Charles Andrez and Charles-Henri Filippi.
The trio joined as part of a broader effort to take on established players in Paris, where Lazard has traditionally held a dominant position.
Evercore’s French expansion has been characterised by executives as a key step towards building a broader European franchise.
Speaking at an industry event last year, Evercore chief executive John Weinberg said the firm was in the “third inning, maybe fourth” of its European growth strategy, signalling further hires and office openings could follow.
“We’ve been talking for a long time about Paris,” he said. “And we have finally really engaged in Paris.”
Part of Evercore’s appeal lies in its distinctive compensation model.
The bank operates an “eat what you kill” system in which senior advisers typically retain around a quarter of the fees they generate — a more transparent and performance-linked structure than those found at many large banks, where pay can be more discretionary.
Evercore has yet to break into the top tier of advisory firms in the Europe’s biggest fee-paying market, the UK. As in the US, Goldman Sachs dominates the rankings. However, smaller boutique advisory firms such as Robey Warshaw play an outsized role in the largest public company deals.
Citigroup and Evercore declined to comment.
