French bank BNP Paribas has acquired a New York-based advisory boutique, as it bids to pick up more M&A mandates in a country where it has only featured in the top 20 list of advisers twice in the last five years.

BNP Paribas said in a statement yesterday that it had acquired Hill Street Capital, an investment banking boutique formed in 2001 by John Brim and Lorenzo Weisman. Both previously worked at Dillon Read, before it was acquired by UBS, and the boutique was named after the location of Dillon Read's former London offices, according to the boutique's website.