• Boeing, the embattled plane maker, sold more than $20 billion worth of stock this week.
• PJT Partners, Goldman Sachs and RBC Capital Markets were among the banks that worked with Boeing.
• The sale will boost bankers’ profits as year-end compensation approaches.

Wall Street bankers charged with helping companies raise money by selling stock just got an early Christmas gift.

Boeing announced its plans on Monday. sell shares worth 19 million dollars and deposit actions to avoid a credit rating downgrade during a costly workers’ strike.

The sale ended raising almost 21 billion dollars, marking one of the largest deals for US capital markets bankers in history. Several banks participated in the offer. Among them were leading joint underwriters Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan; with the help of companies like RBC Capital Markets, Morgan Stanley and more. PJT Partners acted as financial advisor to Boeing, the company said.

The sale, which surpasses the $16.5 billion Facebook raised in its record 2012 IPO, comes at a difficult time for Wall Street overall and could boost year-end bonuses for ECM bankers, according to the financial expert. compensations Alan Johnson.

Johnson, who founded Johnson Associates, a consulting group that works on behalf of financial services firms, told Business Insider that he recently predicted that bonuses for equity capital markets and debt capital markets professionals would rise. to the tune of 20% to 25% this year. Thanks to Boeing’s capital increase, it now predicts an increase in ECM bonuses of 30%, he said.

The contribution from the sale of Boeing shares to any bank’s bonus fund will vary, of course, depending on the number of shares each bank sold on behalf of the plane maker, Johnson said.

Spokespeople for some of these companies did not respond or comment on the potential impact on compensation as a result of their work on the Boeing raise.

‘A rising tide lifts all boats,’ says offset expert

The final size of Boeing’s capital raise puts it on par with some of the largest raises in history, according to global capital raises data provided by LSEG. It ranked third in common stock offering globally, according to S&P Capital IQ data reported by Semafor. The largest was the Brazilian oil company Petrobras, which raised almost $41 billion in September 2010; followed by British bank Lloyds, which raised more than $22 billion in 2009.

In terms of volume, it far exceeds proceeds from other IPOs and common stock raises so far this year, including the $2.7 billion Thoma Bravo raised by selling about half of its shares on Nasdaq, according to LSEG data. . The largest IPO of the year, real estate investor trust Lineage, raised only 4.4 billion dollars, LSEG data shows this.

For Boeing, the newly raised money comes as the company tries to overcome headwinds.

It has faced a difficult situation this year, reporting a loss of more than $6 billion in its earnings release this month. The company has faced a series of safety issues related to doors and mechanical components that have spooked investors. It is also fighting as the strike of more than 30,000 workers, which began in September, continues. Its shares have fallen from a high of more than $251 per share in early 2024 to about $155 in late October, a decline of about 38%. All of these forces have produced the need for additional capital on the part of the aircraft manufacturer, hence its sale.

Generally speaking, Wall Street negotiators are a better year than the one they have had since the good old days of investment banking in 2021, when liquidity was cheap and the deal market was on fire. Mergers are also returning, with multiple deals worth tens of billions of dollars closedsuch as the acquisition of snack producer Kellanova for $36 billion from candy manufacturer Mars. Signs of a thaw in negotiations are here, and bankers hope 2025 marks a return to spring again.

Year-end compensation should be “high across Wall Street,” explained Johnson, whose firm will release its much-anticipated annual incentive pay report in the coming weeks.

“This year is a little better. To some extent, hopefully it will be a lot better next year,” Johnson said, adding: “This is one of those years where wages are going to go up pretty much everywhere. Some “They’re going to go up 5%, around 10%.”

But based on Johnson’s forecast, it looks like those involved in Boeing’s capital raise could find themselves flying higher on bonus day.