Vault 2008 Top Investment Banks

Everyone loves rankings...

Prestige: 1 Goldman Sachs & Company 2 The Blackstone Group 3 Morgan Stanley 4 Lehman Brothers 5 JPMorgan Investment Bank 6 Merrill Lynch 7 Citi Markets & Banking 8 Lazard 9 Credit Suisse Investment Banking Division 10 UBS Investment Bank 11 JPMorgan Chase - Commercial Bank 12 Deutsche Bank 13 Bear Stearns & Co. 14 Citigroup Inc. (Citi) 15 Bank of America 16 Greenhill & Co. 17 Barclays Capital 18 Wachovia Corporation 19 Rothschild 20 HSBC 21 Houlihan Lokey 22 Jefferies 23 Perella Weinberg Partners 24 Wells Fargo 25 Royal Bank of Scotland 26 Evercore Partners 27 Piper Jaffray Companies 28 Thomas Weisel Partners 29 RBC Capital Markets 30 Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance 31 Dresdner Kleinwort 32 CIBC World Markets 33 Allen & Co. 34 BNP Paribas 35 Bank of New York 36 William Blair & Company LLC 37 Brown Brothers Harriman 38 Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. 39 Cowen & Company, LLC 40 Raymond James Financial 41 ABN AMRO 42 Robert W. Baird & Company 43 KPMG Corporate Finance 44 Gleacher Partners 45 Morgan Keegan 46 U.S. Bancorp 47 Macquarie Group 48 Nomura Holdings 49 FBR Capital Markets 50 A.G. Edwards

Quality of life: 1 Houlihan Lokey 2 Lehman Brothers 3 JPMorgan Investment Bank 4 Credit Suisse Investment Banking Division 5 Merrill Lynch 6 Goldman Sachs & Company 7 Cowen & Company, LLC 8 Bear Stearns & Co. 9 Thomas Weisel Partners 10 Robert W. Baird & Company 11 BMO Capital Markets 12 JPMorgan Chase - Commercial Bank 13 RBC Capital Markets 14 PNC Financial Services 15 UBS Investment Bank 16 FBR Capital Markets 17 Citi Markets & Banking 18 William Blair & Company LLC 19 Barclays Capital 20 SunTrust

31 Comments
 

Lehman is not that weak. It is still prestigous in HK and China. However, it is of course not as prestigous as GS, MS, UBS, JPM and Citi there.

Another example is ML, I guess it is looked down unpon in Greater China. And even CLSA is more active here.

 
Best Response

As one lives in Asia, I guess Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are by far the most respected IBs in HK, TW and China.

Then follows UBS, Citi, and perhaps JPM. ML is maybe among them but less significant. CS is a little bit week. Lehman is even weaker but still in the first tier. CLSA is among the first tier. Citi is not good at IB here but is widely considered as a big name (because of CB).

DB, HSBC and ABN are more famous for CB here, and I think DB is losing clients in HK and China. Lazard, Bear Stearns, Jefferies and CIBC are too small here, only with a handful of bankers, and some people never heard them.

China has its own great names: CICC (controlled by Morgan Stanley), GS Gao Hua (controlled by Goldman Sachs), UBS Securities (controlled by UBS), and BOCI (controlled by Bank of China).

Nomura is nothing in China. MQ is expanding but still small.

 

lehman is very weak in asia, don't have any illusions, hr professionals at top corporates have never heard about lehman... they only know gs, ms, ubs, citi

busineess school students have never heard about it

everything arch pei says is true for asia

 
Arch PeiHoulihan Lokey announced it has done more than 100 MM M&A deals in US last year. But why it is still outside the first 10 places of League Table? Are the deals too small that big banks never consider them?

Defining mid-market as $100mm-$1bn, HLHZ does not even place into the top five in the U.S. This is supposedly their target market, its just a small piece of the overall investment banking market, and they are still not a top player. Easily not top ten.

 

i'm sure there are many things wrong distorted about this list. I question the criteria that Vault uses for these rankings. Take for instance Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Strong company that has actually climbed these rankings for 2 consecutive years. Yet if anyone knows FIG (their sole focus industry) you would know that Sandler O'Neill & Partners overwhelmingly dominates the small to mid-market FIG transactions year after year. Check the league tables. Last year, Sandler barely rounded out the list at 50, i believe. This year, off the list, while KBW has moved up.

No consistent logic whatsoever.

 

i'm sure there are many things wrong distorted about this list. I question the criteria that Vault uses for these rankings. Take for instance Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Strong company that has actually climbed these rankings for 2 consecutive years. Yet if anyone knows FIG (their sole focus industry) you would know that Sandler O'Neill & Partners overwhelmingly dominates the small to mid-market FIG transactions year after year. Check the league tables. Last year, Sandler barely rounded out the list at 50, i believe. This year, off the list, while KBW has moved up.

No consistent logic whatsoever.

 

These rankings clearly don't reflect league tables, nor do they capture prestige.

What the hell?!?! there are commercial banks listed!

PLEASE DONT CHANGE EXCEL SHORTCUTS!!!
 

This list is crap. My bank is way better than Thomas Weisel!!!! The league tables are also crap, and not even accurate for everyone.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

League Tables are a bit better, in that at least every bank (including Goldman at the end of last year) uses the same tricks to try to climb them, so in the long run it should be a wash.

Especially in shorter time periods in industry sectors they can be a bit off, but in general I think they are about as close to objective that you can get.

Vault is out of touch. Rank PE firms, investment banks, and commercial banks separately as they are completely different businesses.

 

is determined by some strange combination of factors, as gathered from surveyed employees. I think some factors include hours worked, bonuses, salary, overall satisfaction, etc.

I can't imagine they survey more than a couple people.

Also, note that the Vault list is sponsored by a number of investment banks. Could have some sway over where they are placed in the rankings.

 
Liquid1someone should forward this forum over to Vault. i dont think they know what they're doing.

another fucking stupid part of that list is that Citi is on there twice, and so is JPM. "JP Morgan Chase - Commercial Bank" is by definition NOT an investment bank

_______________________________________ http://www.drmarkklein.blogspot.com/
 

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