Top 5 Richest Investment Bankers in The World & of All Time

Vedant Dwivedi
Checkmate
Published in
3 min readNov 17, 2022

Investment banking is a segment of banking operations that raises capital for companies/individuals and provide financial consultancy services to them. They are the intermediaries between investors and security issuers and enable firms to go public. They buy shares, resell them to public, or sell shares on behalf of the issuers. They gain commission for each share.

It is one of the most complex financial mechanisms as it serves different purposes and business entities. They provide financial services such as trading securities, proprietary trading, mergers, acquisitions, leveraged finance, and more. Let’s get introduced to some of the successful personalities in this domain.

Investment Bankers
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Top Richest People in the Investment Banking Industry

A investment banking career is challenging. But it is not an impossible task to accomplish. There are many great personalities who have walked the field like a lion and established name and fame in the industry. Let’s have a look and know a few of them here.

Leon Black

Leon Black started as an accountant and then worked for an investment bank, Drexel Burnham Lambert. He also headed Mergers and Acquisitions group and co-heads the Corporate Finance Department. He founded the PE firm Apollo Global Management with a group of illustrious people and today Apollo manages over USD 400 billion in assets.

With a net worth of USD 7.5 billion, he is placed at number 224 in Forbes’ list of billionaires in 2020.

Jamie Dimon

Jamie Dimon is the chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase. JP Morgan is one of the four largest American banks. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York previously.

After MBA, he joined Sandy Weill of Citigroup at American Express. He joined Bank One and became CEO. Later on, when JPMorgan Chase acquired Bank One, he became the CEO of the combined banks.

With a net worth of USD 1.4 billion, he is placed at number 1730 in Forbes list of billionaires in 2020.

John Paulson

He heads Paulson & Co., a New York based investment management firm. Though he started his career at the Boston Consulting Group, he moved to the mergers and acquisitions department, Bear Stearns later.

He became very much popular by shorting the US housing market during the mortgage crisis and made USD 4 billion alone in the trade.

With a net worth of USD 4.2 billion, he is placed at number 426 on Forbes’ list of billionaires in 2020.

Lawrence D Fink

Lawrence is the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, an American investment management corporation. He started banking at First Boston, climbed his way to become the managing director and co-head of the Taxable Fixed Income Division. He headed the Mortgage and Real Estate Products Group later on.

With a net worth of about USD 1 billion, he ranked number 28 by Forbes in 2018. He is not listed in the recent 2020 list.

Sergio Ermotti

He is a Swiss investment banker. He was the CEO of UBS Group AG. He may become the chairman of Swiss Re, Switzerland’s largest reinsurance company in 2021. He had led the firm for nearly a decade and is the longest-serving head of UBS.

It is reported that he has a personal wealth of USD 400 million.

To summarize…

Do these great personalities inspire you?

Do you like to tread your career path toward success and become a billionaire by gaining expertise in investment banking?

Then, take your investment banking career seriously. Do not leave any stone unturned in your path. Keep your knowledge and skills updated. Earn investment banking certification, learn technology as these industries are turning digital at a faster rate, and be with the present moment.

Driving a Tesla in the long Atlantic road or to get listed in the Forbes list is not far away when you have the zeal for it. You can take a look at the target stock price of their companies.

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