Private Ownership | |
Industry | Financial services |
Founded | 2006 |
Headquarters | 31 West 52nd Street New York, New York, United States |
Products | Investment banking, Mergers and acquisitions, Private Equity |
Total assets | $485 million |
Website | www.centerviewpartners.com |
Centerview Partners is an American independent investment banking and private equity investment firm. Centerview operates primarily as an investment banking advisory firm. The firm offers mergers and acquisitions advisory, takeover defense, capital allocation and divestitures services. The firm also operates as a financial sponsor in certain private equity transactions. In 2007, the firm raised its first investment fund with $485 million of commitments from institutional investors.
Founded in 2006 by a group of senior investment bankers, the firm is headquartered in New York City with offices in London, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Centerview was founded in July 2006 by Blair Effron, former Vice Chair of UBS AG, along with Stephen Crawford, former co-president at Morgan Stanley, as well as Robert Pruzan, former CEO of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein North America and President of Wasserstein Perella, and Adam Chinn, former partner at Wachtell Lipton. James M. Kilts, former CEO of Gillette, heads the firm's private equity fund. In 2010, Robert E. Rubin, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, joined the firm as counselor.
At UBS, Effron was Group Vice Chairman of UBS AG and a member of the Board of UBS Investment Bank, where he also sat on several management committees. Effron's major coup came in 2005 when he advised Gillette on its $57 billion sale to Procter & Gamble, which was the largest M&A transaction of 2005. In 2006, Effron announced he was leaving UBS to form a new boutique investment banking firm.