Goldman makes Lazard advisory hire

Goldman Sachs has made another hire in its secondaries advisory unit, the formation of which was reported by Secondaries Investor and affiliate title Buyouts in December.

The investment bank has appointed Lazard director Spencer Gyory to its financial sponsors M&A group, according to three sources familiar with the matter. His appointment follows that of former Lazard managing director Alex Mejia, who starts at the bank in May.

Gyory’s title and starting date are not clear. He and Goldman did not respond to requests for comment.

Gyory joined Lazard out of college in 2012, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. He worked on Warburg Pincus’s 2017 sale of a strip of Asian assets and has particular experience in single-asset secondaries and energy deals, Secondaries Investor understands.

Goldman’s advisory focus will initially be on single- or double-asset deals – a market that has boomed during the pandemic as GPs’ have been pushed to extend hold periods. The unit is led by managing director David Kamo and based its New York headquarters.

“We feel like we can be differentiated in that we have a leading M&A franchise and some single-asset deals, even with two assets, are akin to M&A processes in terms of process, structure and tactics,” Kamo told Buyouts last year.

Goldman jointly advised with Evercore on a single-asset process involving HighTower Advisors as part of its efforts to mitigate potential conflicts between its investment and advisory units. Goldman’s Vintage funds, Coller Capital and Neuberger Berman led the deal valued at between $700 million and $800 million.

Goldman the advisor will always have a third-party co-advisor on a deal to work solely with Goldman the investor, should the Vintage team be interested in looking at the deal, Secondaries Investor reported.

Lazard did not respond to a request for comment.

– Adam Le contributed to this report.