This investment bank hires the most jocks out of college - and crushes the M&A league tables

Screenshot/CNBC

Blair Effron, co-founder of Centerview Partners

• Boutique investment bank Centerview Partners employs the highest percentage of former varsity athletes than any other firm across Wall Street, according to a report.
• Jocks may be drawn to Wall Street's competitive, eat-what-you-kill culture.

It should come as little surprise that trading floors and banks are stocked with former athletes.

After all, jocks may be drawn to Wall Street's competitive, eat-what-you-kill culture.

But the firm that recruits the most college athletes last year is not a household name. It's a small investment bank called Centerview Partners, according to a new report by Wall Street Oasis, an online community for financial professionals. An estimated 28% of employees at Centerview classify themselves as varsity athletes, the report says.

Middle market advisory firm Harris Williams & Co. nabbed the second spot in the ranking and Lazard Middle Market placed third.

Wall Street Oasis crunched the data based on user submissions to its company database from 2016 to 2018.

New York-based Centerview Partners was founded by star bankers Blair Effron, Stephen Crawford, and Rob Pruzan in 2006. It's often considered the premier boutique bank behind some of the biggest, most transformational M&A deals in the last year, including CVS Healthcare's $69 billion deal for Aetna and Disney's agreement to buy $71.3 billion worth of 21st Century Fox's assets.

In the last few weeks, Centerview served as adviser to music streaming company Pandora on its sale to satellite radio company SiriusXM.

The bank ranked No. 11 in the league tables for announced global M&A deals in the first nine months of the year, up from the No. 20 spot last year, according to data provider Refinitiv.

Wall Street has attracted a number of athletes over the years who have gone on to lead big firms, including former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who played football at Duke, and Guggenheim Partners executive chairman Alan Schwartz, who played baseball also at Duke.

See also:

• The dealmaking boom of 2018 could shape up to be one of Wall Street's greatest years on record
• Mega-mergers are surging at a record pace - and history warns a market crash is looming
• JPMorgan's US M&A chief shares the secret sauce for getting deals to pop by flouting an old-school rule of dealmaking