Miller Buckfire - Thoughts or comments?

Anyone have any thoughts on Miller Buckfire as a firm? Typical datapoints (ie comp, lifestyle, exit opps, etc) and/or any other relevant comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

I had a superday and was really impressed - everyone seemed cool and smart... their comp is top notch (I think base might be above street), seemed like a pretty sweet place to work in terms of lifestyle (staffed on two-long term restructurings at a time, probably not much pitching), exit opps seemed good into distressed hedge funds or pe. The analyst program is 3 years and half the people I interviewed with were associates who had been directly promoted from analyst. If you're interested in restructuring it seems like you can't do much better. PM me if you have any other questions.

 
Best Response

Base / Sign-on comp is actually below street (65 / 8). Lifestyle is just like any other restructuring group (most, if not all, groups run lean at the junior level). Friends that have worked at MB haven't had anything extraordinarily negative to say so I can't imagine that the lifestyle there is anything other than you might see at typical investment banks.

Certainly a good place to be for restructuring as they are very well regarded within the space. However, i've gotten the impression (and somebody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that if you start out at a place like MB (or even HLHZ FRG) and focus specifically on restructuring it would be tough to move out of the distressed arena. I would be sure that restructuing is something I would be interested in long-term. To add on to that, restructuring engagements (especially Ch. 11 cases) tend to be very long and drawn out, which is different in M&A, so I would not surprised that you might only see 4 - 5 engagements close within your 2 - 3 years as an analyst.

 
1styearBanker:
^ Very good post. Restructuring is hard to break out of and within a few years I would say it is definitely going downhill as M&A is quickly picking up.

Not a good place to be stuck in.

I would say that the cycle has been over for several months now (or at the very least waning) and many of the continuing projects are ones that were engaged previously in late 2008 or 2009. The debt markets are slowly opening back up and I think that you'll see many of the companies that would have previously restructured go into the public markets and refi.

On the flip side, a lot of the work in restructuring is actually pretty interesting and there is a lot of money to be made, especially if you become a principal investor. A lot of distressed / vulture funds have purchased a significant amount of debt for pennies on the dollar and will look to unload that (either into equity, back into the public markets, to the company etc.). Some of the stuff that Oaktree, Matlin, Sun do is pretty cool and certainly more interesting (IMO) than a traditional buyout or growth equity shop.

If I were interested in doing that type of stuff, I would definitely choose Buckfire over a lot of other name brand firms purely on the type of work that I would be working on.

 

I also had a superday with them last year and they have one of the hottest HR people I've ever seen. You'll meet with 7 or 8 people (most are 2-on-1) and every room you go through is fit except for their "technicals-only" room. One of the most rigorous technical interviews I've been through. They're all smart and gender-diverse at the junior level (saw a couple female analysts/associates, and know a female VP there). Since they have such a small class (both summer and full-time analysts), they are selective in bringing on-board kids with high GPAs and strong finance knowledge - this is like most strong boutiques. MB is well-respected in restructuring and place well in distressed funds like oaktree and cerberus.

 
nom_yourmom:

Oh also, they're advising Detroit on their Chapter 9, and doing it pretty much pro bono (Kenneth Buckfire is from Detroit) so if you're gonna be starting soon get ready to deal with that whole nightmare.

That actually sounds really cool. Does anyone have more opinions on the ability to break out of restructuring from MB?

 

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