Warren Buffett's favored banker, Byron Trott, is planning to expand his investment and financial advisory firm BDT Capital Partners in Europe with a London office to attract billionaire clients, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Chicago-based BDT, founded in 2009 by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N> investment banking vice chairman Trott, 56, manages investment funds of more than $8 billion, and also advises family and founder-led businesses on M&A deals, corporate governance and succession planning issues.
Trott, who works with wealthy families in Europe such as Italy's Agnelli family, plans to submit a request to operate to Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, one of the sources said, adding that it might take up to six months to get the regulator's blessing and begin operations in Britain.
A spokeswoman from BDT declined to comment on the firm’s growth plans. A spokeswoman for the FCA declined to comment.
Assuming it receives authorization, required of any firm that wants to carry out regulated financial activities in the UK, London will serve as a strategic hub for Europe. The move is part of BDT's expansion which includes the launch of a New York base to cater to Wall Street's wealthy clans, the source said.
BDT has worked with wealthy families in the United States including the heirs of the Mars Inc. fortune and the Walton family of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. <WMT.N>.
BDT's main focus in Europe is to help billionaires look for better ways of earning a return than simply handing their cash to family offices or fund managers, by advising them on M&A deals and other investments, one source said.
Trott has said that BDT works exclusively with "billionaires with businesses", according to an interview in Fortune magazine in December 2014.
During the financial crisis, Trott proved his friendship with one such billionaire - Warren Buffett - when he persuaded him to invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. It was Trott who brought Buffett into Mars Inc.'s $23 billion acquisition of Wm. Wrigley Jr. & Co. in 2008, a deal in which Buffett invested about $6.5 billion.
Last year the number of billionaires in Europe overtook North America, with a third of the world's richest now residing on the continent, according to The Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census.