Citi Corporate Banking or TD Securities Investment Banking?
Would corporate banking at Citi or investment banking at TD Securities yield better exit ops / MBA school results? Both offices would be in Houston and starting after undergrad.
Does Citi corporate banking or TD investment banking have better PE exit ops?
Typically investment banking yields the better exit ops. Would TD be any M&A? That is usually required for PE and you won't get that at Citi.
I think there is some M&A but their deal flow is pretty weak from what I've heard. But I guess some deal flow is still better than non like at Citi CB
Do you want to do PE in the energy space, or are you simply interested in PE in general?
If you exited from banking either to PE or to an industry role, would you want to stay in Houston/Texas, or would prefer to end up elsewhere?
For PE I would be okay with energy since my deal experience will only have ties with energy. PE in general would be great as well. But for industry exits, I'd preferably like to work in tech strategy / corporate finance at a F500.
Well, one popular school of thought on WSO holds a) that IB is the path to PE, and b) that if you want to do IB, then you should do IB. According to this viewpoint, virtually any IB gig is preferable to a non-IB finance gig (even if the latter is at a bigger or more prestigious bank), simply because the IB position will help you get the appropriate deal experience for PE recruiting and interviews.
However, in your situation, things seem a bit more complex. First, TD is a relatively new and still fairly minor player in the Houston energy space. I don't know what their deal flow looks like, or how much of that deal flow focuses on M&A advisory, or whether their MDs have the local connections to help analysts get placed in energy PE. It might turn out that while you would get some relevant deal experience at TD, this office is simply not on the radar for most of the headhunters who run recruiting for energy PE in Houston. Moreover, I'm not sure how much juice the TD name would have for getting you interviews for non-energy PE shops outside of Houston.
At Citi CB, you would not be directly involved with M&A advisory (which is something that PE recruiters privilege, given the nature of PE), but Citi CB is institutionally housed with Citi IB, and the CB teams might be involved with the financing sides of various deals run by the IB side. In addition, Citi CB would give you significant exposure to the energy industry in general, since Citi Houston is currently one of the the Big Kahunas--and arguably, in terms of overall deal flow, THE Big Kanuha--in O&G banking. You could then leverage this exposure in several different ways: a) moving to industry in a corporate role; b) trying to network your way into energy PE (though probably at a smaller shop); c) lateraling to another Houston bank as an IB analyst; d) lateraling to the IB side at Citi; e) using the Citi brand to help you get into a good MBA program.
Citi has a pretty good reputation for internal mobility, so--if you performed well in CB and made friends with the IBers--you might well be able to lateral into Citi IB, which would place you smack dab in the middle of a recruiting pipeline that would probably blow away what you would find at TD. If that internal switch to IB didn't work out, then landing an IB analyst position at a different Houston bank would certainly be within the realm of probability.
Other possible Citi CB exits include moving to different divisions of Citi in different cities, attending business school (with M7 a real possibility, assuming you have the grades and GMATs to be competitive), or heading into non-energy regional PE at small shops (another real possibility). Try fooling around in LinkedIn to build a picture of actual exits from Citi CB (and from TD IB). That should give you a more concrete sense of how these positions would impact your career prospects.
In short, a good case could be made for taking either the TD IB or the Citi CB options. If I were you, I would think carefully about fit. Ask yourself which office vibe you found more appealing and which group of interviewers seemed more like folks you would like to spend LOTS of time with over the next couple of years.
Two final notes: First, Citi CB works long hours. It's still less than Citi IB, which is something of a sweatshop, but it's considerably more than some of the 45-hour/week "lifestyle banking" CB positions that I've seen mentioned on WSO. Second, one common exit opp for CB analysts at Citi would be to stay on and move up to the associate level. That is much more common in CB than in IB (for a variety or reasons).
Thank you so much for your response! You made several great points that I didn't consider before and will definitely think about everything before making my choice. Side note, I really want to thank you for your other responses too, you've been a tremendous help for me in numerous ways.
One other factor you might want to consider would be the return offer rate for converting summer analysts to full-time hires. Citi CB is strong in this regard (as is Citi IB in Houston, I think). I don't know about TD IB, but WSO provides data on return offers in its annual survey of banks; that would certainly be worth checking out.
If you have time, keep us updated on the interview process and on your final decision. Good luck!
That's a great point! From what I heard at information sessions at both, TD and Citi try to convert 100% of their summer analysts unless they do something really bad. So hopefully, that means I can evaluate both equally in that sense.
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