Ranking: Evercore NY, PWP NY, Lazard NY, Lazard Tech?

I have gotten offers from several boutiques to participate in early recruiting or even advanced early recruiting. I am not sure which ones to prioritize and which groups have the best reps in terms of exit opps and culture.

 

I confirm Evercore > PWP > Lazard for NY at the moment.

I'd go for Evercore if you like the team and prefer being at a larger advisory platform compared to PWP. Very good deal flow and strong exits in the past.

PWP poached Woody Young (and a large part of the telecoms team) last year from Lazard. Perella has done some very strong deals in others sectors as well recently and is definitely on the rise again.

 
Controversial

The deal exposure and experience that analysts at PWP get is insane. A while back I was talking with a partner at PWP and he said something that stuck with me: "By the time most MDs retire at a bulge bracket bank, they may have done two or three 15B+ size transactions in their entire career. It isn't unusual for us to have analysts with that experience under their belts at the end of their analyst years." That is absolutely nuts.

 

This is just verifiable BS. You can find PWP's transactions on their website and out of the disclosed deal values for the last 5 years, only 4 have exceeded $15B. Based on the parties invovled in the undisclosed ones you can see that they're operating in the high hundreds of millions or low billions. I can assure you that you are very very very unlikely to be doing 2-3 $15B+ deals in 2 years. They do have insane deal flow, just don't BS expectations on the big boy transactions

 
Best Response

I'm interning this summer at an EB not mentioned here, but all of the above are very strong. I think PWP is certainly on the rise again, and I woud argue at the moment Evercore > PWP > Lazard as others have mentioned in this thread.

Just look at PWP's deals the past couple months: - Advisor to BD on C.R. Bard Acquistion: $24B - Sell-side advisor to Kate-Spade: $2.4B - Advisor to Cardinal Health: $6.1B - Advisor to Stada: 5.3B Euros

And Keep in mind PWP is significantly smaller than Evercore and Lazard - so if you look at its dealflow relative to its number of partners/MDs, it's punching way beyond its weight.

I also think both PWP and Centerview get unfair reps for restricting analysts to exit / not being supportive. I've talked to analysts and partners/MDs at both firms during my recruting process last year, and they confirmed how firm policy has changed over the years and the "non-supportive" attitude is entirely a thing a thing of the past - keep in mind both firms are relatively young (IIRC both were created in 2006), so back in their nascent stages they encouraged analysts to stay-on in order to grow and establish themselves. This policy stood in place for a couple of years, but after the firms matured it became vestigial - however, since both firms are small, people continued to attribute them as "non-supportive" and propogated misinformation. Looking at recent exits for analysts at CV and PWP you can see exits to megafunds, Upper MM PE, hedge funds, growth equity, etc.

 
<span itemprop=name>BananaCrazy3620</span>:

I'm interning this summer at an EB not mentioned here, but all of the above are very strong. I think PWP is certainly on the rise again, and I woud argue at the moment Evercore > PWP > Lazard as others have mentioned in this thread.

Just look at PWP's deals the past couple months:
- Advisor to BD on C.R. Bard Acquistion: $24B
- Sell-side advisor to Kate-Spade: $2.4B
- Advisor to Cardinal Health: $6.1B
- Advisor to Stada: 5.3B Euros

And Keep in mind PWP is significantly smaller than Evercore and Lazard - so if you look at its dealflow relative to its number of partners/MDs, it's punching way beyond its weight.

I also think both PWP and Centerview get unfair reps for restricting analysts to exit / not being supportive. I've talked to analysts and partners/MDs at both firms during my recruting process last year, and they confirmed how firm policy has changed over the years and the "non-supportive" attitude is entirely a thing a thing of the past - keep in mind both firms are relatively young (IIRC both were created in 2006), so back in their nascent stages they encouraged analysts to stay-on in order to grow and establish themselves. This policy stood in place for a couple of years, but after the firms matured it became vestigial - however, since both firms are small, people continued to attribute them as "non-supportive" and propogated misinformation. Looking at recent exits for analysts at CV and PWP you can see exits to megafunds, Upper MM PE, hedge funds, growth equity, etc.

Take with a grain of salt, but buddy at CV tells me recruiting is by no means supported at the firm today, just slightly more tolerated than previously. Wouldn't expect VPs / MDs to have your back when interviews roll around.

 

For M&A, it is really tough to beat out Lazard (https://markets.ft.com/data/league-tables/tables-and-trends/mergers-and…).

In terms of prestige, I'd say Evercore wins. I base this purely on the employees I've interacted with from Evercore.

In terms of exposure, PWP blows the other two out of the water. PWP is a smaller firm and bit more flat in deals (read: junior employees will work on multi billion dollar transactions). You'll work so close with senior bankers as the analyst/associate level it is insane. Not to mention PWP can be a bit more nimble and rising in the ranks. They won Beckton Dickinson as lead advisor. That's probably a ~24B deal. They were also hired by A&F to entertain takeover bids. As a junior employee, PWP probably gives you the best experience hands down just because of the deals you get major exposure to.

 

It's pretty clear what WSO thinks is the best choice, but definitely go with whichever firm's people you liked the most. After all, you'll be spending quite a bit of time with them

 

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