Two Bankers Join Jasper Street Partners

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two Wall Street bankers are joining Jasper Street Partners to help clients defend against activist investors by identifying vulnerabilities, navigating proxy contests, and managing public pressure campaigns.

Duncan Herrington and Peter da Silva Vint, who worked as activism-defense bankers most recently at Moelis (NYSE: MC) and Barclays respectively, are spearheading the new business, Jasper Street executives told Reuters.

Herrington and da Silva Vint will be managing partners and join founders Robert Main, Jessica Wirth Strine, Marc Lindsay (NYSE: LNN), and Amy Hernandez Slowik, former Vanguard executives.

Started in 2020, the firm changed its name from Sustainable Governance Partners this month and was conceived in a coffee shop on Jasper Street in Media, Pennsylvania, with offices in Pennsylvania and New York.

“As the gray space between economic activism and issue activism continues to converge, we see huge potential for an adviser that can cross all of that terrain,” Strine told Reuters.

Herrington, who trained as a lawyer before entering banking, left Moelis over the summer and previously worked at Raymond James Financial (NYSE: RJF). Da Silva Vint, who also holds a law degree and an MBA, worked at Moelis overseeing governance at portfolio companies for BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) and most recently at Barclays.

The two men reunite at Jasper Street as demand increases from companies facing agitators like Carl Icahn and Nelson Peltz, as well as interests like unions. A record number of activist campaigns were launched in the first half of the year, including at Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), JetBlue, and Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS).

Jasper Street expects to form relationships to provide year-round “offense” and “defense” support, Strine said, not just crisis services.

Competitors include big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, along with independent firms such as Spotlight Advisors and Strategic Governance Advisors.