I have been searching for the past few months for any IB opportunities in the Charlotte area, specifically smaller boutique-type firms, and haven't had much luck finding anything. Just curious if anyone has better information on the area and may know of a few places that I haven't checked. To me at least, it appears there is a lack of presence of these types of firms in the area. Please let me know what you think!
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The boutiques in Charlotte pretty much all seem to be on a hire as needed basis. Just Google investment banks in the area. The ones I know are Bourne Partners, 7 Mile advisors, Brookwood Associates, Fidus Partners, DecisionPoint Capital, Falfurrias Capital, BlackArch & Fennebresque.
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Pro tip: Have a roman numeral after your name if you want any traction in Charlotte recruiting. Also helps if you played Lax at UNC/UVA or go duck hunting.
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Davidson?
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Did you search WSO at all? This has been discussed countless times already. I'm not trying to discourage you, but you may want to think about transferring schools if your end goal is Charlotte. These boutiques are HEAVILY biased towards UNC, Duke, Davidson, and Wake Forest.
Below is a general overview of IB in Charlotte. Most banks in Charlotte were either founded by or are currently led by former Bowles Hollowell (now Wells Fargo) bankers, so everyone knows everyone.
---BBs/Large banks--- -Bank of America (very few groups, mostly leveraged finance) -Wells Fargo (still a large presence, but they have moved many groups to NY)
---MMs--- -Baird (they had one analyst there a few years ago...might just be a few MDs now) -Deloitte (formerly McColl Partners...not sure if they have changed under Deloitte, but this was one of the stereotypical "you better be from UNC" place) -Lazard MM (not the same as the Lazard EB...I believe they have healthcare and industrials in Charlotte) -Jefferies (I believe they have consumer in Charlotte) -Piper Jaffray (formerly Edgeview...this was the other "you better be from UNC" place) -SunTrust (I believe they have TMT in Charlotte)
---Boutiques--- -7 Mile -Allen C Ewing -BlackArch (they were bought by Regions a few months ago) -Bourne Partners -Brookwood Associates -Dragonfly Capital -Fidus -Fennebresque -Philpott Ball & Werner -Sherman & Company (FIG) -Tobin & Company (avoid like the plague)
Am I missing anyone?
lol any reason to avoid the tobin one like plague?
I and many others have had terrible experiences interviewing there. I cannot imagine what it's like to actually work there.
I second this. During my phone interview there, one of the analysts messed up the time of the interview (was supposed to be at 2:00, he thought it was at 3:00). Wondering what the deal was, I emailed the analyst. No response. About 30 min later I called to see what was going on. I was very polite about it and was eventually referred to the MD there. The MD opened up the conversation by screaming at me, asking if I knew what the hell I was doing, how could I ever expect to work in IB given my rudeness, blah blah blah. Needless to say, I kept my cool, aced to the interview and never talked to those hacks again.
During my junior year SA stint, I worked with a guy who interned there. He said that my experience was par for the course.
Hahahaha. Here's my story:
So, I made it through the first round of interviews and then had a final-round phone interview with the MD. I called her, and she proceeded to rant for ten minutes about how sexist the IB industry is and how she kept getting fired from BBs because she kept getting pregnant. I just responded with "I'm sorry to hear that." The rest of the interview consisted of two other basic questions, and that was that. A few days later, she calls to make an offer. I thanked her for the offer and asked how long I have to decide. She gave me two weeks, but I could tell from her tone that she was salty that I didn't accept on the spot.
I went through the process at another boutique in Charlotte. They couldn't interview me in time before the Tobin offer exploded, so I emailed the Tobin MD asking her if she could extend her deadline. She asked if I was considering another offer, and I said that I was. She then redacted her offer and told me that I don't know the worth of an internship at Tobin and that I was the weakest candidate she interviewed, but she gave me an offer because there was so much interest (that doesn't even make sense). She made it seem like kids were banging on the doors and crawling through the windows to work at Tobin and that she essentially gave me an offer because she felt sorry for me.
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Add Leerink Partners to the list. The Lazard MM Healthcare guys left and joined Leerink.
BlackArch and McColl (Deloitte corporate finance) recruit 6-7 analysts on cycle every year. BlackArch is a higher quality shop (seeing a lot of recent success) whereas DCF is a higher quantity shop (heard DCF has been struggling lately). Lazard, Fidus and Piper Jeffery all have offices in Charlotte as well. Overall there is a decent amount of IB in the area.
Wells Fargo and BofA are the biggest in Charlotte. WF has their IB HQ in Charlotte, but their numbers in NY are about equal. BofA's HQ is in Charotte, but it seems to me like their presence in NY is much greater. Other than those 2, it's mainly boutiques.
only BofAML groups that I know of in Charlotte are a small group of LevFin and the rest are capital markets. Lot of ECM bankers there too if my memory serves me correctly.
Piper has a decent presence there from their acquisition of Edgeview.
There is Piper, Fidus Partners, Leerink, BlackArch, Lazard MM, Dragonfly Capital and I'm probably missing a few. I also have to say the whole duck hunting/frat thing is not really all that accurate--at least at the bank I work at.
McColl Partners used to be very good there. They were a acquired by Deloitte. Believe most of the team is still there.
List I can think of off the top of my head WF, BOA, Piper, Jefferies, Lazard, Decision, Fenn, 7mile, Deloitte (former McColl I believe), Fidus, Blackarch (Now apart of regions M&A), Brookwood (think they were acquired by Fidus), Fifth Third to some extent. It's a very large IBD scene outside of NYC, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
As far as breaking in, I believe you may just be having trouble as a sign of times across the business. Juniors aren't in a big demand at the moment, but that changes quickly as anyone with experience can tell you.
BB&T, Citi is supposedly adding a muni desk here, Regions has a presence, Lancaster Pollard is hiring for a senior living banker
Ayyyy I also interviewed with Tobin a few years ago. Seriously avoid like the plague. I interviewed with Justine Tobin after a 1st round with 2 associates, and she said the last thing the industry needed was another white male. Didn't get the internship.
LOL...and yet her website shows that 75% of her analysts, who she probably doesn't pay, are white and male.
I interned at Tobin a few winters ago.
Terrible experience. As most others have said it's extremely sexist, I once made the mistake of using the world "girl" instead of "woman" about a female that was under the age of 18 and was promptly chewed out. I also threw away a piece of paper instead of recycling it and was then told that my parent's must've been backwoods hicks that don't care about the environment one bit, both have PharmDs and are largely more successful than she is.
I didn't work on one deal while I was there, just a lot of bullshit. Don't waste your time. Whenever people message me on LinkedIn about it I just feel bad for them.
TL;DR - you don't get paid, she hates men, and you won't get any real exposure
Lol
Hilarious how this thread turned.
More Tobin & Co stories please! Too funny to pass up.
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If anyone is interested in 7 Mile Advisors, I can share some information. Basically, this is a roughly 12 person shop that outsources all their modeling work / deck building. Analysts and Associates are basically cold callers for deals and need to bring them in. They are like MD lites and get paid based upon the deals they bring into the firm, i.e. small base salary like $30k and commissions for deals (although not high enough). The comp structure is bizarre and almost resembles a multi-level marketing scheme.
I would avoid this shop like the plague as well. Also, almost everyone in the firm is an evangelical/bible type Christian.
I know this post is almost a year old, but someone SBed me, which brought me here.
What you described sounds about right. I met the team a few years ago, and all I remember is how one of the partners kept showing me his iPhone so that I could see how many emails he was getting. It was really bizarre. We had lunch together, and throughout lunch, the guy would randomly yell out, "Yup, just got another ten emails."
Wow! I have to second this. I apparently had an offer from a place that does something similar to this. You can check my post for more details. I had to post on here and had Sil help me (thanks again). But yeah, its sketchy and thankfully I stood away from those folks..
Where do they outsource their modeling to?
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