SMBC/Mizuho/MUFG Corp Banking Thoughts?

Interned on a corporate banking coverage group at one of the banks listed. Culture was good; people were friendly and I never encountered any assholes. Only thing I would say is that people were friendly and professional, but I did not get a very collegial feeling. It didn't seem to me like people wanted to spend any more time than they had to with one another.

For specifics, comp seems to be street with lower bonuses (I think at my bank AN1 is $110 base + 20-30k bonus). Hours were very light this summer, with most analysts working 9-6/7, though I'm sure they logged on a bit again at night. We were told this was a slow period though, seems like busier hours would be 9-9/10. That was for coverage. For teams like LevFin and Project Finance, seems like it was typical IB hours.

My overall view is that it's a good role for someone who just wants to work in finance/banking, but doesn't want to pull IB hours. That said, most exits seem to be to IB, so I guess we all need to put in the hours at some point. Almost all the MDs are hired externally, so I'm not sure what long-term career growth looks like at these banks. Other than that, the work is sort of boring and not very technical (mostly industry slides and admin/process management for credit approvals). This is just my limited perspective from having interned.