What happens to analysts in bad groups?

I know of a group that had only 3 core transaction over a two year period. The group was a sub group and operated in a sleepy industry (think retail or consumer specialty) from '04-'06. Group had md, dir, assoc or two and 2-3 analyst. exit opps weren't "great" but great is all relative.

deal are kind of important though, and "attempted" deals are also good b/c you can speak to those.

well, which groups get the highest deal flows?

Depends on the market and bank.

BMWhype for you to have almost 350 posts on these boards and be asking questions like that (and not just that one, I've seen others), you are contributing to the drop off in this site....

Ridiculous. I mean seriously. How the f*** can you post that much while not even being in the industry. "Oh well, my friend xyz said this, and jim bob said that". Get a f'ing clue man.

hehe. "jim bob".

As far as deal flow - definitely depends on the market and the bank. For example, FIG right now is white hot and seeing tons of deal flow. In the tech boom, TMT saw exorbitant deal flow, etc.

As for exit opps - pretty difficult to go to a top PE/HF mostly because you have not gotten the 'correct' experience. Of course it's possible to go to buyside, but in my opinion, probably not worth it if you end up a crappy shop.

In my experience, top analysts at many groups at BB's tend to end up at more respectable places than bad analysts at the top groups. That's a rather sweeping generalization. Bigger shops will give their favorite banking groups first looks, but they can't hire exclusively from the same 3 groups year after year, especially if they have a broad range of investment industries. I don't think any group at my particular bank was "bad." But we did have mediocre groups (league table wise #7-12). I think my industry group was probably in that range in the league tables. Probably some of it had to do with the fact that we were a small group that focused on a handful of large deals per year rather than many smalls ones, but as a result every decent analyst worked in 2 or 3 multi-billion dollar deals. And like I've mentioned before all tier 1 and 2 analysts in my group ended up at multi-billion dollar buyside shops. Two of my compadres are now at the same megafund.

If you work hard in you group, there's no doubt that you can land an HF gig sometime int he future. Of course HFs cant all hire form the same damn group year after year, or else everyone would have the same/similar experiences. They have to "diversify", so to speak. Besides, not all the people in the "better" groups are hard working and smart, some got their VIA connections, etc. So if you seperate yourself from the bunch, and you work hard, you can make it.

thx for the replies. herserendipity, by crappy shop do you mean one with less AUM?

Gametheory,

How do buyside shops distinguish who the top analysts are, especially from groups that are not as well known?

laxdude - Nope. There are definitely quality shops with less AUM (maybe not the really small ones with only 300-400mm) I view "bad" shops as those that don't do great deals, have little support, etc. Take it with a grain of salt though because that is my opinion.

For example, one of my buddies left to a shop after his 2 years and his office has 10 people with him being the only associate. He doesn't do much sourcing but the firm relies heavily on the limited contacts the senior partners have in their rolodexes. They don't have great ability to go out and get a lot of new business and they don't do what you would consider "quality" deals. Then again, making money IS the end game and they pull in decent revs so they all get compensated decently.

I would not personally leave a BB to go to a crappy buyside shop/crappy bank but that's just me.

They will call their banking contacts and MD's in your group.