William Blair LevFin

Can someone help me understand what a leveraged finance group does at a bank with no balance sheet to lend from (such as WB)? I'm assuming this is debt advisory type work. What would a deal look like for a levfin group at a non-lending bank? How do hours / comp compare to the industry groups?

Don't know specifically about WB's group, but you are correct in that it is debt advisory, which is becoming increasingly utilized as part of MM and even some LMM transactions. You'd work on:

1) Potential transactions: finding/securing debt primarily for sponsors trying to acquire a business (can be tough because if your sponsor doesn't win the deal, you did a bunch of work for nothing)

2) Recaps of existing portfolio companies: either to provide shareholders with cash returns (distributions, dividends, etc.), provide more flexible financing for growth or acquisitions or potentially to supplement restructuring or special sits in distressed

Hours tend to be better overall from what I've seen, but can spike because there tends to be more compressed timing for some transactions (particularly the potential bucket where sponsors engage you to get a term sheet or financing arrangement so they are able to deliver a fully-baked LOI)

Majority of the deals are with BDCs and non-bank funds (Golub, AB, Ares, etc.).