Help Needed: West Coast Offices

GS SF

thanks gibranmeng, anything specific about GS SF?

also, anyone else with knowledge about the west coast offices? help is much appreciated.

thanks bb.manda.3rdyear... is it possible to elaborate on the criteria used in determining why those firms are known as opposed to jokers, and vice versa?

Deals (execution), exit opps, prestige.

Probably really similar to BB M&A. This is heavily biased towards exit opportunities however.

Tops: UBS LA - Generalist ,CS LA - Generalist ,GS -TMT, MS - M&A (no order)

2nd Tier: CS SF, both M&A and corporate finance

3rd Tier: UBS SF FSLF & Restructuring

Nothing else is probably worth going to unless you are looking for an easy time and not particularly focused on anything else.

is good too. GS/MS CS UBS

actually ML tech m&a in PA has a lot of deal flow. But I agree with you about all other groups at ML on the west coast.

I guess if you compare them to ML LA, ML Tech and ML Healthcare they have some deal flow. But let's be real they aren't a player.

for someone who's not working in banking yet, where do they go to find out about the dealflow of these offices that you guys are talking about? or is it just knowledge from being in the industry and talking to people?

CS Tech has a lot of momentum, maybe even on par with GS/MS Tech.

don't get me wrong, but putting it on par with GS/MS is stretching it.

ML SF (formerly PA) Healthcare has a ton of deal flow. ML Healthcare is huge, and their San Francisco group handles almost all of their bio-tech and med-tech stuff. The co-Group Head is out there, and they have a lot of good work.

Ari are you at CS Tech?

CS Tech is great, but exit opps aren't as good as the other 4 big groups.

ML HC is good out west, but still on a relative scale they don't do the big deals like UBS / CS LA and GS/MS.

I'll take the fifth on that question.

I was referring more to deal flow than exit ops (where GS/MS win hands down).

poor etiquette asking you that on the board.

I don't know about ML Tech, but generally I wouldn't want to work at ML west coast given a choice.

I would pick the two LA offices / GS / MS completely based on interests, prestige at that point doesn't really matter (if you want PE/HF). If you just want solid deal flow any of those plus CS Tech is fine in my opinion.

i see, thanks westcoasting. does any of this change if i'm just picking offices for a summer internship? perhaps immediate exit opps aren't as important, for example?

Just trying to clear things up.

I was told by someone who worked at CS in SF during the Quattrone days that all the CS bankers but one left for DB SF. She was very clear that DB was pretty big in the tech scene out there because of this, and that CS was on the way up but nowhere near what it was. Wondering why the knock on DB in SF if this is true?

sorry, might be a stupid question but since i've seen it on the board more than once, whats the "Quattrone days"?

"Quattrone days" refers to Frank Quattrone and when he was the hotshot tech banker at CSFB during the tech boom of the late 1990's.

Pros / Cons of going to one or the other at the associate level? Also thinking about a boutique m&a shop in SF. Plan is to do 2/3 yrs and then PE...I know at the analyst level this is a pretty clear path, but not so sure at the associate level.

also, nobody has anything to say about Citigroup on the westcoast?

but prestige is. If you summer at one of the two LA office or GS/MS I would say more top groups and banks would take you seriously vs. somewhere like Bear LA.

You wan't to go to an office that sources and executes deals and is generally well regarded. The old DLJ LA office and GS/MS in SF/PA will get you that required recognition.

For example, a girl i know from GS SF this year transferred to GS NY CRG. Four guys in the '04 summer class at UBS LA went to GS NY. Couple guys went CS LA to LEH, MS etc NY. Don't know much about people at MS West coast, maybe BB M&A can help you out there.

Your summer group DOES matter.

Someone mentioned that Citigroup SF has a CapIQ Terminal, similar to a Bloomberg terminal at your average bank.

whats the significance of this CapIQ Terminal?

whats the prestige of Citigroup on the west coast locations?

They compete against like Revolution Partners and Montgomery and Company for deals (pure niche lower MM banks)

DB in SF is not great at all. If you think co managing all your deals greater than 300mm is cool go for it, or joint booking sub 300 deals by all means.

Westcoasting knows what he is talking about UBS LA is the shit. No I don't work there

Lehman LA's Gaming group is strong--I know they work on some high-profile deals unlike the their joker sponsors counterparts. Our internal deal announcements always have them involved in some big casino deal while we hardly ever see their sponsor's team in any deal announcements.

I thought all other groups were moved to NYC and only FSG remained. I heard they cover funds under 200mm

The West Coast is all about UBS/CS LA and GS/MS. Everything else falls a notch below and everyone who matters knows that.

Ari Gold- CS appears to have become sole bankers to Google, but they are still a notch below their GS/MS counterparts.

so for west coast:

tier 1: GS/MS, UBS/CS LA tier 2: ??? tier 3: ???

can you guys fill out the rest with firm AND location? thanks a lot.

LEH's FIG and Industrials got wiped out (some kids in my analyst class got axed) but their Gaming guys get crushed but hardly do any pitching (only reason I know is because we work with them on a bunch of their deals). Good exit opps--two analysts in the group are going to top-tier PE this summer.

i work at a top 2 bank in NY. from the firm directory and deal flow, my firm has excellent deal flow out of its menlo park office. MS tech/GS TMT in SF are both very strong..I would say

1 UBS LA 1a CS LA MS Tech GS TMT

Some would argue that cs LA deserves to be the ubs la tier but i am not 100% sure.

MS has also sponsors in sf and M&A in LA..sponsors in sf is OK, but rather goto NY where majority of group sits...MS LA is a joke, but they did work on the harrahs deal....but it didnt require too much work.

GS Communications is decent in LA but not on par with the above. GS also has a small FIG group in LA...They aren't worth mentioning.

Many people have also talked about the CS tech group, and indeed they are very solid!!! probably the best group outside the four I listed.

cs tech

Houlihan?

what location is CS tech? is it in SF with their healthcare unit? or is it in palo alto/menlo park?

nt

What about the info about all the former CS guys going to DB? Can you confirm or deny that peice of information? I also was told that DB SF poached the entire Lehman semiconductor team...

Strong MM team. Definetely not in the same tier as the other banks discussed on this board. They are quite strong in FRG however. Exit opportunities are ok, many MM funds and distressed debt from the FRG group. Not sure about M&A or ADG which is another strong group.

Where I have worked, those lateralling into BB from HLHZ were discounted a year. This was post Associate laterals however.

if you are in banking and you lateral, you dont lose a year. however, you are asked to stay for 2 years so if u lateral, u have committed til the end of your 3rd year. + it looks bad to work at one place one year and another before PE...most wont even look at you.

cs tech is in the bay. i believe they moved everyone back to SF..but not 100% sure.

LOOK guys, tech is a fucking carousel..people are moving around all the time between CS, DB, Citi, Lehman, UBS... the main players are GS/MS bar none!. their people stay. CS tech is headed by two great guys. one in the bay and another in NY..

DB tech is only good for debt financing, but even that, most of it is handled by their lev fin team.

IMHO, tech banking isnt glamorous at all. it is essentially a diff type of modeling... give me consumer, industrial, media-communications any day over tech.

My thoughts on the firms for the west coast: 1: GS TMT/MS M&A/UBS LA Generalist 2: MS Tech 3: CS LA / CS Tech 4: UBS SF Restructuring 5: UBS SF Technology / GS LA / MS LA 6: Lehman Menlo / Houlihan ADG (LA) 7: JP Morgan / Citi Group 8: Bear Stearns TMT / Lazard TMT / Deutsche / Lehman LA 9: Piper / Wachovia 10: Thomas Weisel Partners / Montgomery & Co. / Savvian

Thoughts?

don't know too much about the bottom of the list. Thought Lazard TMT was better though with them representing MSFT and AAPL? Could be wrong, west coast banking is not my forte.

Lazard sf TMT is a shit show...in matter of fact, outside of lazard's ny and chi offices, nothing else is worth it.

they just pitch all day. sure microsoft is a client of theirs, but they rarely hire outside banks in the first place since they have a huge internal team. a lot of the mds there are industry ppl. the lazard name is great, but everyone knows their presence in sf is a joke. same with their LA "gaming" office, whatever that means.

bbM&A..that list is fine except MS tech/MS MA.. MS tech M&A is great, MS tech is great. i sort of lump the two into one. MS generalist M&A out of LA is a joke. would take UBS, cs, GS LA all over that and some of their bay counterparts. LA is a terrible place to do banking outside of ubs, cs, gs comm/media in my opinion.

Right... when I said M&A i meant Tech M&A (for MS).... i like to think that tech M&A is better than tech at MS. I also listed MS separately for LA. Just my personal thought.

I forgot to add Merrill to that list.

1: GS TMT/MS M&A/UBS LA Generalist 2: MS Tech 3: CS LA / CS Tech 4: UBS SF Restructuring 5: UBS SF/LA Technology / GS LA / MS LA 6: Lehman Menlo / Houlihan ADG (LA) / Merrill Tech M&A 7: JP Morgan / Citi Group / Merill Tech / Merrill Healthcare 8: Bear Stearns TMT / Lazard TMT / Deutsche (FIG in LA could arguably be lower) / Lehman LA / Merrill LA 9: Piper / Wachovia / HLHZ (not FAS) 10: Thomas Weisel Partners / Montgomery & Co. / Savvian

there is no way that UBS SF Tech is that high. all they do is pitch. everyone in that group is trying to lateral to other firms.

Maybe you are right, but they have done some good stuff last year. This is just my perception working on the west. But compared to the other banks it looks ok to me.

but look at the rest of the competitors, not exactly tier 1. Atleast that office is a solid size and has a strong Restructuring group.

because UBS Tech SF is not very good, and NY is only slightly better.

in SF it's all GS/MS with CS getting a little street cred.

in LA its UBS/CS however UBS LA is caveated for Tech analysts as the tech office is HQed in SF.

bb.manda.3rdyear do you work on the eastcoast or westcoast? would you say your perception of the westcoast offices are pretty similar to those of your colleagues?

optical charge: I know a guy at UBS SF restructuring seems pretty good, I believe they are generalists and they call themselves FSLF more focus on the LF.

ss: I'd say if you can get into my rankings as top 3 you are Money.

4-6 are respectable too, if you can't get those you should work at your current place and lateral. I know people at other banks and they are having a rough time with exit opps.

i see, thanks bb.manda.3rdyear you've been really helpful.

No sweat.

BB.MandA, do you know much about how JPM and Citigroup place in NYC? It seems like both you and ExGSbanker have emphasized they aren't desirable in the West if we want exit opps in either PE or HF.

its group dependent obviously, JPM is good for LevFin in NYC

how are they compared to NY/Boston?

BAS SF is alright for tech i guess. below bulge players but right after that.

Literally...TMT is only half the office.

How is JPM's consumer practice in the bay area? Do you know anything about them?

BAS SF is pretty good in RE

It's the senior bankers that make a difference... All the monkeys do the SAME THING. Next time you think that YOU are actually doing better work because you are in a "better" group, you might want to take a step back and re-evaluate the situation.

I work at a boutique and our clients give us pitch books and IMs created by all sorts of banks. Every one looks exactly the same... Just change the name.

I agree, but for all intents and purposes a pitch book is a pitch book and an IM is an IM.

Let's be clear, we DO NOT use the material. What I meant by "just change the name" is that the only thing that distinguishes one banks book from another is the name on the cover.

That would definitely be fucked up to take credit for some other analysts/associates work.

then why do people not mention DB SF Tech banking at the very top since i assume those guys would be dealmakers and have the relationships b/c of Quatrrone.

what about CS LA's Financial Institutions Group?

bump

Barclays poached CS LA - Lev Fin (after poaching GS NY Lev Fin)

are these rankings still relevant today? have there been any shifts in the rankings?

<span class=keyword_link><a href=//www.wallstreetoasis.com/finance-dictionary/what-is-the-bulge-bracket-BB>BB</a></span>.MandA.3rdyear:

1: GS TMT/MS M&A/UBS LA Generalist 2: MS Tech 3: CS LA / CS Tech 4: UBS SF Restructuring 5: UBS SF/LA Technology / GS LA / MS LA 6: Lehman Menlo / Houlihan ADG (LA) / Merrill Tech M&A 7: JP Morgan / Citi Group / Merill Tech / Merrill Healthcare 8: Bear Stearns TMT / Lazard TMT / Deutsche (FIG in LA could arguably be lower) / Lehman LA / Merrill LA 9: Piper / Wachovia / HLHZ (not FAS) 10: Thomas Weisel Partners / Montgomery & Co. / Savvian

bump

For tech I would put GS TMT in SF and MS Tech in Menlo at 1 and 2

For SF I would put MS (they have a general West Coast CorpFin team in SF and a Sponsors team) at 2 and Goldman's general corp fin team #2. The MS Sponsors team in SF is also quite good since the Sponsors group at Morgan started on the West Coast before it did in NY and the global head is based in SF. They do a lot of tech sponsor business and are super close to TPG. Exit ops out of SF MS Sponsors or SF GS are really strong with offers to H&F, KKR, TPG, and Blackstone regularly received.

I LA is still has to be UBS and CS with GS and JPM competing strongly. Some of the MS M&A guys in LA are also quite good.

The Prince of Wall Street

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