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
Is Citi Markets & Banking different from Citigroup investment bank? Why does it appear twice?
this is not the global ranking
in Europe and ASia
Lehman is very weak.. i doubt whether people will put it in the top 10..
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.
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.
what determines the "Quality of Life" ranking, and what makes Houlihan Lokey (never heard of em) and Lehman so great in this category?
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
are a specialised debt restructuring house, I heard in London at least lifestyle was pretty miserable.
Lehman is rather weak in Asia, but I do not agree that it is very weak in Europe.
Houlihan 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.
how come BMO stern not included?
those vault rankings are pointless. look at league tables.
The JPM Commercial Bank is ranked way too high... I did a stint there and trust me.. it's not that glorious. Harder to break into IBD than one would assume... if you work for them in Chicago good luck finding an IBD job in NYC.....
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.
*barely rounded out the VAULT list at 50. Not the league tables.
what a useless list
why is gleacher so low? arent they a top boutique?
These rankings clearly don't reflect league tables, nor do they capture prestige.
What the hell?!?! there are commercial banks listed!
This list is crap. My bank is way better than Thomas Weisel!!!! The league tables are also crap, and not even accurate for everyone.
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.
Agreed with above, PE & IBD are to different to put on the same list. And what determines the Quality of life list?
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.
someone 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
Is actually not bad for interview prep if you know nothing. It was a good starting point for me; I could roughly know what I was talking about before getting advice from people that actually worked in the industry.
Rothschild is ranked # 19? Can't be serious?! I mean Rothschild got a lot of prestige.. it's a small house, but well.. it's good!
Blackstone has Corporate Finance business, but can it be viewed as IB? Then what about KKR?
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