Is PWP stagnant?
I was checking out different boutiques, especially looking at how they're doing with their fees and growth in revenue. Noticed that while places like PJT, Evercore, and Moelis are kind of on the up and up (leaving out the crazy growth in 2021), PWP doesn't seem to be riding the same wave (lowest fees of the lot too). It's a bit weird because I've seen a bunch of people online saying PWP is expanding fast, but from what I can see, that's not really the case. They aren't killing it in the league tables, and there haven't been any big, splashy deals like the FTX or iHeart ones recently. Am I missing something here? Just trying to get the full picture, not trying to throw shade at PWP or anything.
I was considering lateraling there eventually b/c I've heard the culture was great and I'm sticking with banking for the long haul, but the stuff I'm seeing (or not seeing) with PWP is kinda throwing me off.
Bump
PWP is pretty good from what i heard.
PWP is a strong bank. Heard good culture, reasonable hours for IB, great exit opps.
I don't understand why they didn't capitalize and hire more seniors like the banks you listed. I feel like they lost out on alot of talent floating around.
Wondering this too — I checked out their LinkedIn and they posted some new hires there but still not much compared the others. Definitely a bit confusing.
I don’t know where this good culture theme came from. From my roommate and some kids I knew from college all said the culture is pretty toxic and backstabby. Especially the “old school” groups like restructuring and industrials.
can u elaborate am recruiting and considering PWP as my top choice because of "culture"
Better than the worst of the worst but not sunshine and rainbows
I've heard it's hard to come across MF interviews at a place like PWP.
What’s weird is like you say stuff like this but if I go on LinkedIn I see someone exited to Apollo like 2 years back? Also if you go on this site their exists per capita were pretty good recently too. Not sure how they aren’t getting interviews from MF
Is this mainly for NY
I don't exactly agree with your whole analysis there, although I completely understand. It does seem like Evercore and Moelis are expanding pretty aggressively, especially with their seniors, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are "on the come up". The whole elite boutique business model is keeping the deal flow / investment banker as high as possible, and if you hire a bunch of seniors (or juniors) who end up underperforming, you could easily loose your value. Each of the elite boutiques has a different model for growth (for example, Lazard is focusing less on hiring, but increasing productivity as Peter Orzsag recently said). PJT is focusing on their worldclass Rx platform, but has not grown their M&A arm substantially, if at all. Evercore and Moelis are certainly expanding, but whether that is for the better is yet to be seen (they are both great firms, to be clear). Finally, PWP takes a more cautious growth approach. They are never going to compete with the likes of Lazard or Evercore on League Tables, but they will continue to be a top boutique that offers a great banking experience, does some mega-deals, and pays very well.
PJT hired literally 15+ bankers and have gone on to continue to say they will poach senior talent
EVR took a lot of people from GS/MS etc.
Moelis hired aggressively too and basically absorbed most of the SVB team.
I’m not saying that PWPs strategy hiring opportunistically is wrong but candidly what competitive deals are they on?
also btw iheart PWP was advisor to board of directors. Moelis was debtor rx advisor for iheart. So I assume they were the one that actually facilitated the transaction
Ever consider the fact the deal fees might be the lowest out of that group because they are by far the smallest in size? CVP is an industry outlier - Partner and MD headcount will lead to higher fees generally speaking. PWP has about 650 bankers. Moelis double that and Evercore and Lazard multiples bigger. Like the comment above said, they will never try to compete for a top league table rank. It’s about keeping the deal flow per head at a solid level and growing as needed. With that being said, I think you will see them rapidly scale headcount the next few years.
Problem with PWP is that they pretty much only do business with Corporates and not with Sponsors. Whereas EVR / Moelis / PJT are heavy sponsor focused. Much more easier to grow aggressively via sponsor deal flow than via corporates / strategics.
This. They never built a practice around sponsors; their focus was providing independent strategic advice to corporates. And that model has somewhat aged now, as companies have bigger in-house FP&A teams and large cap strategic deal-making is more targetted.
PWP is still a good platform, but only for specific niches - retail, healthcare (not biotech) do well, and RX is reasonably well regarded (not Tier 1). Their biggest struggle is that after the failed SPAC, they now have a situation where the founders have essentially cashed out from the SPAC (P Weinberg is starting to be phased out; TPH leadership has left, and some of the old guard is no longer vested in the firm).
Some of their senior bankers Stacia Ryan in consumer etc departed. Their teleco heavy hitting team ended when Woody Young departed around Covid. The culture has diluted, and what was historically a good shop because of culture and experience, now offers less than stellar experiences. Also, no all cash bonus now since its listed. For these reasons, I would rate them on the lower end of an EB for some of the areas, but broadly as a middle market firm. For someone looking to start a career as an analyst, all these things really shouldn't matter (you will get a good experience I'm sure) - but it's not a place where I would necessarily want to build a banking career.
The field in which they operate is so crowded now. Take tech for example. I had a close friend in their tech team for 6 years or so (and another one in their consumer practice from my alma mater), and it is by far their weakest team, with mediocre deal experiences (outside Fintech where they won because of their relationship with Paypal - Michael Grace; we lost a paypal bakeoff to them but subsequently dislodged them on another larger deal). They are - what you would consider- operating at lower end of the middle market. I'm a tech banker, and I would consider them a Tier 3 shop at best. Guggenheim has an ex-GS head of software now leading there, and I've seen them in one bakeoff now. EVR dominates this space as an independent outside of Qatalyst. PJT is also building up its tech practice and MOE just hired a whole bunch of SVB bankers to boost out their VC coverage. PWP is no where in the picture outside of the Absolute software deal they did (a deal we didnt pitch for because of the sub <$1Bn size but EVR did and lost to them). So there are wins once in a while, just nothing consistent.
Interestingly, Peter Weinberg was at my alma mater's pane discussion as a guest speaker earlier this year - and one comment he made was that he sees a wave of consolidation happen in the independent advisory firms in the not too distant a future. You wonder where that puts them in the grand scheme of things.
What’s ur advice on switching shops from SA-FT should I start reaching out now? I had suspicions of this when I took the offer but everyone told me it’s a great firm and it would be crazy to keep recruiting for better ops.
This is a really interesting comment. There is a lot of value to having independent advice but its crowded and commoditized. Feels like the consolidation wave is inevitable.
Valid points, but you are coming from the perspective of someone who works in PWPs weakest area by far (tech). Consumer & Healthcare much stronger, and RX is a great practice. Take RX for example, they have 3-5 partners from my knowledge, a firm like PJT has ~16-20. So yes, they will not win the pure quantity of deals they will. I interact with alum of that group the most so can only comment on them, but they exit very well.
I don't disagree; I specifically flagged retail, Healthcare (non biotech) and RX practices as being good in my post.
Employee at PWP, so I can provide some insight. PWP is not necessarily stagnant (the firm is in growth mode), but the firm in many ways hasn't been able to capitalize on certain market tailwinds or was late on certain trends and thus feels a bit more stagnant; the firm is fully in growth-mode right now to catch up. Overall, the firm is doing fine (20th in league tables this year and ahead of PJT, which is where PWP usually lies).
As one of the users above noted, PWP's business model has always been to be a go-to independent strategic advisor to corporates for complex situations and needs. While that usually means M&A and RX, Often, that doesn't even mean M&A advisory in the traditional sense - PWP prides itself on being a board advisor and being the go-to advisor for unique and special non-traditional situations. PWP's management has continued to emphasize that the firm's seniors should only be doing business with repeat clients with the potential for a large fee opportunity in the future (aka large-cap corporates). PWP has never really built out a real sponsors coverage practice, and as a result PWP doesn't get a lot of sponsors deals, which makes up an increasingly large portion of M&A deal flow.
As PWP's expanded, PWP's picked up some great seniors and some not-so-great seniors, and a lot of PWP's pick-ups have been very targeted at building out specific niches with an account-based model at the top (PWP would focus on seniors that cover key corporate accounts). That often means that PWP's deal flow is at the mercy of key corporate accounts and if those specific companies are in the mood for doing M&A. Thus, in a good year (like 2021), PWP rides the league tables all the way up, and in a year where a lot of PWP's key clients are dormant, PWP is dormant as well. PWP does struggle with talent retention due to this model (little incentive for the senior partners to share their key corporate accounts with up-and-coming MDs and Partners, so the new seniors have to strike it out on their own). PWP also struggles with key man risk because due to its account coverage, PWP doesn't really overstaff coverage verticals with seniors so often the firm will have only a single senior responsible for a vertical. There has also been simply some bad luck that has affected PWP's growth as well (ex. PWP London earlier this year iykyk). PWP's growth strategy has also had some questionable decisions looking back (not building out the Tech group earlier, gutting Media & Telecom completely), but a lot of that growth strategy has been due to PWP's preference to find its own niche and not compete in a crowded field (eg. why PWP Tech is focused a lot more on growth capital and MM strategic advisory than sponsors or large-cap; PWP gutting its Media & Telecom practice because the firm felt like it wasn't worth pursuing the MM deals in the space and large-cap coverage was too weak without Woody/large-cap space was too consolidated for more transformational M&A).
Overall though, PWP has been making a pretty significant senior hiring spree for a firm of its size. PWP is much smaller than most other EBs, and the firm has been hiring quite significantly over the past 2 years for its size. It'll take some time for the hires to ramp up and show results, but so far it's been pretty promising.
Thank you — this is fantastic information. Just out of curiosity, do you know if PWP will be moving to a more sponsor heavy model in the face of a deals market that is increasingly dominated by them?
what happened in London?
I think an MD/some senior banker was accused of insider trading. Apparently the guy was the rainmaker for one of the sub-verticals
Culture has absolutely diluted overtime compared to what I have seen online and what my friends has said that have worked there years ago. When I interned last year some groups felt like they were stuck in the 90s like Industrials and RX. Very weird environment and just decided to go somewhere else.
Could you elaborate on any of the points you mentioned? Interested
Ask any of your pals that interned at Perella in the past two years or anybody that’s still there.
Any update on this? PWP just released earnings and I’m curious for some thoughts
lol. They aren't stagnant at all. Clearly doing a very good job slowly scaling and building their business. They did the Blackrock GIP deal and also the Holicim US Spinoff, which should be the two largest transactions in their respective industry group thus far in 2024. I think out of all the EBs CVP and PWP probably still have retained the same business model/comp stability amongst all the other banks. PJT seems to shift their business model and want to scale and expand their M&A and also activism/secondaries groups, and EVR LAZ MOE are all different models now as they're more focused on volume/market share.
lol news just broke out on them being hired for spirit airlines... they are definitely doing fine lol.
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