Two hires in the last two weeks tell the story. On September 28, Centerview Partners brought in Bennett Schachter from Elliott Management as a partner to lead and expand its Capital Advisory business. Four days later, Piper Sandler lifted a three-person infrastructure debt advisory team out of Nomura in London, led by Stewart Robinson, Nomura’s EMEA head of debt advisory. “Debt advisory and M&A advisory are symbiotic,” Robinson said in the announcement.
Neither move is a one-off. Over the past two years, Evercore, Moelis and Goldman Sachs have each made changes that point the same way: more people whose job is to advise clients on how a deal gets financed, not just whether it gets done. For bankers in leveraged finance, debt capital markets, private placements and private credit, that is creating seats that did not exist a few years ago. For M&A bankers, it is a reminder that understanding the financing is becoming part of the job.
Why Financing Advice Became Its Own Business
For most of the last two decades, financing a leveraged deal meant going to the banks. The bank that advised on the M&A often provided or arranged the debt, and the advice and the capital came as a package.
Private credit changed that. In Europe, direct lenders provided nearly 70% of LBO financing in the first quarter of 2024, up from about 25% in early 2020, according to Debtwire data published by ION Analytics. In the U.S., the two markets now compete deal by deal. PitchBook’s July 2026 U.S. Private Credit Monitor found the year-to-date pricing gap between broadly syndicated loans and direct loans was 146 basis points, the narrowest since 2019. It also listed ten direct lending deals between February and July 2026 that were refinanced in the syndicated loan market.
When two markets compete that closely, the choice between them is a real decision with real money attached. Pricing, covenants, speed, certainty, call protection and the relationship with the lender all differ. A sponsor or a corporate treasurer wants someone on their side of the table who knows both markets and is not trying to sell them one.
That last point is the pitch. When Centerview announced Schachter’s hire, co-founder Blair Effron described the offering as a “full suite of unconflicted capital solutions.” Independent advisors do not lend, so they can tell a client to take the private credit deal, the syndicated deal or neither. Banks with balance sheets have responded in their own way. In January 2025 Goldman Sachs created a Capital Solutions Group that brings together its financing, origination, structuring and risk management work, a move CEO David Solomon said would put the firm “at the fulcrum of one of the most important structural trends taking place in finance.”
Who Is Building, and How
The recent hires fall into a few patterns.
- Elite boutiques adding a financing arm next to M&A. Centerview’s Capital Advisory business covers equity, equity-linked, credit, structured products and alternative capital, plus strategic financing advice. Schachter previously ran capital-markets and financing-solutions work at Elliott, was global head of Alternative and Capital Solutions at Morgan Stanley, and held senior capital markets roles at Goldman, including head of Equity Syndicate.
- Independent firms deepening private capital markets. In June, Evercore hired Dennis Cornell, most recently a partner at Apollo, as a senior managing director in its private capital markets group, saying it is expanding origination and broadening its product suite across debt and equity placements, securitization and ratings advisory. In July, Moelis hired Justin Polselli from Jefferies, where he led the middle market and direct lending initiative within leveraged finance capital markets, as a managing director in its capital markets group. Moelis said it is seeing growing client demand for customized financing.
- Mid-market and sector firms using team lift-outs. Piper Sandler’s London move brought in a team leader plus two directors, who together have more than 20 years of debt financing experience, and placed them inside its energy, power and infrastructure group.
- Established platforms that have been doing this for years. Houlihan Lokey’s Capital Markets Group, for example, said it had nearly 100 dedicated professionals in 12 cities in 2024 and had raised and advised on more than $14 billion across about 100 transactions with around 65 financial sponsors in 2023.
Two things stand out from a recruiter’s seat. First, several of these senior hires came from the buy side: Schachter from Elliott, Cornell from Apollo. That is the reverse of the usual banker exit, and it says something about what these firms value. People who have sat on the lending or investing side know how capital providers think, and that is exactly what a borrower wants in an advisor. Second, the builds are small. A partner and a handful of bankers, or a lift-out of three. That shapes how hiring works.
How These Teams Hire
Capital advisory teams tend to be built around one senior person with relationships and a track record, then filled in with mid-level bankers who can run processes. A few things follow.
Team lift-outs are common. When a firm hires a leader, the leader often brings people they trust. Piper Sandler hired Robinson with two of his Nomura colleagues. If you work for a well-regarded debt advisory or private placements head, your career could move with theirs, for better or worse. It is worth knowing how your senior banker is viewed in the market.
Lender relationships are the currency. In the announcements, firms repeatedly point to the hire’s relationships with lenders and capital providers. Moelis cited Polselli’s lender relationships and execution record. At the VP and director level, being able to say which funds you know, which deals you ran and how those processes went could matter as much as product knowledge.
Product range matters. The best-placed candidates have seen more than one kind of capital: syndicated loans and high yield, but also direct lending, private placements, preferred equity or structured solutions. Bankers who have only worked one market could find it harder to sell themselves as advisors who can compare them.
Searches are often quiet. Because these teams are small and built around specific people, many seats are filled through direct conversations rather than posted roles. That is one reason we talk to bankers early, before a seat is public.
What It Looks Like by Level and Platform
Analysts and associates. Capital advisory can be an interesting place to learn. You see both sides of a financing, lender books and terms, and you work closely with sponsors. The trade-off is that the group is often small, so you may get less formal training and fewer peers than in a large leveraged finance group. For associates thinking about the buy side, exposure to private credit processes could be useful if you are considering a credit fund rather than private equity.
VPs and directors. This is where demand looks strongest. Firms building out need people who can run a process day to day: organize lender outreach, manage term sheets, negotiate documents and keep the client informed. A VP from a bulge-bracket leveraged finance or DCM desk who has also worked on private credit deals could have real options, including at boutiques that cannot easily train people into the role.
MDs. At the top, firms want proven relationships and the ability to bring in mandates. As the Centerview, Evercore and Piper Sandler moves show, that profile can come from a bank, a credit fund or a hedge fund. MDs considering a move should expect questions about portability: which clients and capital providers would follow you, and how quickly.
By platform. At bulge brackets, financing advice usually sits inside leveraged finance, DCM or new structures like Goldman’s Capital Solutions Group, close to the balance sheet. That offers scale and deal flow, but the role is often to distribute the bank’s own products. At elite boutiques and independent advisors, the pitch is independence; the work can be broader, but the teams are smaller and depend heavily on the senior banker. Middle-market firms often see the most sponsor-backed financing work, since sponsor-backed middle-market deals have long been a core market for direct lenders, and they may hire for deal execution more than for brand-name relationships.
What M&A and Coverage Bankers Should Take From This
Even if you never move into a capital advisory group, the trend affects you. Robinson’s point that debt and M&A advice are “symbiotic” is how many sponsors already see it. A buyer weighing an acquisition is often weighing the financing at the same time. Bankers who can talk credibly about both could be more useful to sponsor and corporate clients, and more valuable to their firms.
That does not mean every M&A banker needs to become a credit expert. It does mean that understanding how private credit terms differ from syndicated terms, why a sponsor might pay more for certainty, and when a refinancing makes sense could help in pitches, in reviews and in lateral interviews. For bankers thinking about a product move, a stint near financing could also widen later exits, including to credit funds as well as private equity.
What It Means for Your Career
Capital advisory is not new. Firms like Houlihan Lokey and Evercore have run financing advice businesses for years; Evercore was announcing debt advisory MD hires as far back as 2021. What has changed is how many firms want to be in it and how much the market now rewards people who understand both public and private capital. A few practical takeaways:
- Know your market value across both markets. If you have run syndicated and private credit processes, say so clearly on your resume and in conversations. That combination is what many of these teams want.
- Track your lender relationships. Be ready to name the funds and banks you have worked with and what role you played. In this area, relationships are a large part of the pitch.
- Watch for team moves. If your senior banker is approached, you could be approached too. Think in advance about whether you would want to go.
- Ask about independence and conflicts. When considering a role, ask whether the group advises clients on financing or sells the firm’s own capital. Both can be good careers, but they are different jobs.
- Do not assume the build lasts forever. Hiring in financing advice could slow if credit markets turn or if deal volume drops. Small teams depend on a few people and a few relationships, so look closely at the leader and the firm’s commitment.
The financing used to be the part of a deal that came with the bank. More and more, it is the part clients want independent advice on. For bankers who know how deals get funded, that could mean more seats, more leverage in a move and a career path that did not exist in the same form a decade ago.
Related reading
- The Middle-Market Squeeze: What a Megadeal Market Means for Bankers on the Outside
- The Great Poach: How Wall Street’s Elite Banks Are Raiding Each Other for Proven Talent
- Exiting Is a Decision, Not a Default: Rethinking the Banker’s Exit in the Year of the Bank
Sources
- Centerview Partners press release via Business Wire: Schachter Joins Centerview Partners (Sept. 28, 2026)
- Piper Sandler press release: Infrastructure debt advisory team in London (Oct. 2, 2026)
- Evercore press release: Dennis Cornell joins as senior managing director, private capital markets (June 22, 2026)
- Moelis press release: Appointment of Justin Polselli (July 15, 2026)
- FinTech Futures: Goldman Sachs launches Capital Solutions Group (Jan. 15, 2025)
- Houlihan Lokey: Capital Markets team expands with senior European hire (May 21, 2024)
- ION Analytics / Debtwire: Direct lending overtakes syndicated debt as LBOs’ most reliable funding source (May 21, 2024)
- Business Wire: George Karalis Joins Evercore as Managing Director in its Debt Advisory Group (July 2021)
- PitchBook: July 2026 US Private Credit Monitor