Watch Hill Partners LLC, a New York-based boutique that serves financial sponsors and their portfolio companies, has added two senior investment bankers to its fold, Robert Swindell and David Dickson.

"We have been very good friends for 15 to 20 years," says Swindell, 48, of Dickson, 49. The two didn't come to Watch Hill as a package, but Swindell, who started a few months ago, says it was no surprise when Dickson joined last month.

Until March, Dickson was with Merrill Lynch & Co. where he covered big private equity players such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Warburg Pincus. "I left Merrill when they lost their first $20 billion," says Dickson. He's spent time with his children, vacationing at his Maine home, golfing, and fishing. "I had fun."

But now he's come back to work at a much smaller shop; Watch Hill has 17 professionals. Dickson knows Watch Hill co-founder David Knowlton well, though the two men can't recall how they met.

"He's been trying to get me here for a while," Dickson says.

Dickson brings to the boutique a wealth of relationship in the financial sponsor world. He headed worldwide industrials M&A at UBS from 2000 to 2003, but shifted to the finanical sponsors group at the behest of his then-boss Ken Moelis. There, he covered KKR, Carlyle Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners and other PE shops. Merrill recruited him three years ago for its private equity coverage team.

After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1981, Dickson started his career at Chemical Bank. Harvard Business School followed, then a stretch at Dillon Reed prior to UBS. Since resuming working life, Dickson says "it's been a whirlwind," adding that there is a great need for restructuring and recapitalization work.

Swindell, who is also friendly with Knowlton, joins Watch Hill following three years as the CEO of Washington-based defense and intelligence consulting firm Civitas Group LLC, where he remains chairman. Dickson came to Civitas through one of its founders, Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, who also served as a consultant to Lehman Brothers Inc., Dickson's old shop. Swindell joined Lehman in 1987 as an associate in the fixed income group.

He then moved to global debt capital markets, which he ended up running from 1995 to 1998. Swindell headed Lehman's consumer-industrials group from 1998 to 2001, and switched to the tech group from 2001 to 2003.

Swindell started his career at Manufactures Hanover after graduting from the University of Virginia in 1982. He earned a Wharton M.B.A. in 1988. Since joining Watch Hill, Swindell says he's been busy working on capital raisings and M&A, particularly distressed M&A. He sees investment banking evolving from providing financial engineering to providing more strategic advice, not too dissimilar to consulting. The key, he says, is to develop relationships and trust.