Greenhill History

Greenhill is a leading investment bank focused on providing financial advice on significant mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, financings and capital raising to corporations, partnerships, institutions and governments.

We act for clients located throughout the world from our offices in New York, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, and Toronto.

We were established in 1996 by Robert F. Greenhill, the former President of Morgan Stanley and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Smith Barney. In 2004 we were the first of several independent advisory firms to complete an initial public offering and list on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Since our founding, Greenhill has remained focused on the business of advising clients on important transactions, and has sought to grow by extending our geographic reach, by increasing our industry sector expertise and by broadening the types of transactions on which we advise. In terms of geographic expansion, in 1998 we entered the European market by opening a London office, and two years later we extended our European coverage by opening a Frankfurt office. In 2006-2009 we expanded our coverage of the North American market by opening offices in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Toronto, and we also expanded to Japan by opening a Tokyo office. In 2010 we entered the Australian market by acquiring Caliburn, the leading independent investment bank in Australia, with offices in Melbourne and Sydney. Since then, we have continued to methodically build out our coverage in the Americas, Europe and Asia with new offices opened in Hong Kong in 2011, Stockholm in 2012, Madrid in 2017, Singapore in 2019 and Paris in 2020. In terms of industry sector coverage, we have recruited senior bankers with long experience and deep expertise in nearly every industry sector, and we continue to both recruit and develop additional talent to deepen that sector coverage. Lastly, in terms of types of advice, we initially focused exclusively on merger & acquisitions advice, in 2001 began offering financing advisory and restructuring services, and in 2010 entered the capital advisory business, where we advise both general partners and institutional investors on transactions relating to private equity fund investments and fund structuring. In 2015 we expanded our capital advisory business by acquiring Cogent Partners, the leading global advisor to endowments, pensions and other institutional investors on the sale of alternative assets in the secondary market.

In November 2023 we were acquired by Mizuho Financial Group.