More M&A advisors

Early in 2005 I had published a post on investing in M&A advisors as a way to benefit from the M&A as well as breakup/spinoff surge.

Most of the firms mentioned there, except for Greenhill, were not pure-plays. Since then however two other, largely M&A and restructuring, advisors have gone public and both are still good investments to ride the coming wave. These are a) Lazard (LAZ), which seems to show up in every deal and b) Thomas Weisel Partners (TWPG), which also has a private-equity wing.

I did open a small position in Lazard following the IPO, and the shares have risen considerably since then, with the recent earnings turning up better than expectations.

The Greenhill shares I bought, around the time I made the earlier post, have since gained 200%.