2026 Review of UBS Groups
I’m a current UBS analyst. Figured I’d give interns a ground-level read on the groups as placement kicks off, separate from the usual marketing. I am sure in the upcoming weeks the incoming interns receive updates on very robust pipelines that have remained theoretical for multiple analyst classes. The earlier posts don't seem as relevant given recent departures. As a whole no group gets paid well.
- LevFin: Great MF/UMM PC exits, MM PE exits. Legit franchise and strong in sponsor-backed work, you’ll see acquisition financings, LBOs, plus the usual refis/amendments. Very sweaty and lots of time in long internal credit memos, but a lot of reps. Culture is mixed people wise.
- ECM: Probably the clearest bright spot recently. Share gains and senior hires in Tech ECM have translated into actual roles on deals. Weaker outside those areas. Not a place to go for exit (it’s ECM), but flow and lifestyle are solid if you are interested in the product.
- Industrials: Huge 2024, softer since, some senior departures. Still, certain verticals (paper/packaging, chemicals) have strong deal activity and this is the most consistent coverage group for UMM PE exits. Sweaty and culture can be tough.
- HC/FIG: Long hours, constant pitching, strong in select niches and quieter in others. Deal sizes tend to be smaller and exits are middle-of-the-pack.
- CR: Good relative flow vs the rest of the firm. Smaller team, generally better culture. Exit are more mid-tier and lagging current momentum.
- M&T/M&A/RELL: Grouping these all in together because they are just the worst groups in the bank. High intensity, political, limited flow, mostly LMM exits. Given the tradeoff, not surprising many analysts focus on leaving quickly.
- Tech: Great WLB. Big team, limited flow. Exits have historically been strong, though unsure how sustainable that is if deal volume doesn’t pick back up.
- Sponsors: Senior departures, layoffs, and the move to fold into M&A have made this a pretty uncertain seat. From the outside in the past 1.5 years, it's a bit hard to determine what exactly they do on a day-to-do. Great WLB though.
Just one person’s perspective, experiences may vary.
Congrats on UBS!
Is M&A really that bad? Always thought it was a top group there. Interesting.
Copying from another thread where I answered about M&A, but yes.
One of the weakest groups at UBS with toxic culture / terrible WLB. Exits skew mostly into LMM shops. Attrition is high because people want out of their terrible hours, toxic culture, and low pay analyst stint. Hard to point to many positives. Some really terrible VP's and MD's to work for there that make people stay up till ~3-4 AM and then wake up at ~6 AM for pitch work. It's not uncommon to find people crying in the bathroom close to the M&A group everyday. That's how bad the culture is.
When you combine culture, deal flow, and placement, it’s probably one of the two weakest groups alongisde M&T (when not considering ECM/DCM, which doesn't place into buyside often). If you have other options, I’d look there first.
Ignore title, am a second year analyst. The best groups to go for undoubtedly are LevFin (of course), consumer and tech ECM, with FIG being a strong runner up if interested in that sector. GIG and sponsors used to be strong but with senior departures and future uncertainty + recent decline, would be a very risky bet to go for, even for exits (considering needed transaction exp)
How is FIG? I was under the impression exits there were more middle-of-the-pack, and the group has a reputation for being very sweaty. Agree on Consumer and Tech ECM being bright spots.
FIG is sweaty and culture is toxic / political.
FIG has a very heavy reliance on H1Bs as everyone else leaves.
FIG is awful… run!
Additional perspective:
Realistically UBS is very very rarely going to win large sell-side M&A mandates, any examples in the past were a result of a CS relationship which has fizzled out at this point, and are far and few in-between. For that reason most of the flow is sponsor related and M&A credits are usually buy-side credits (read: LevFin deal).
Would 100% avoid Sponsors. After integration with M&A the junior class is very small, 3/6 interns returning from last cycle, and they laid off AN2(s?) last year. This group was far stronger when combined and you'll still get some reps, but at that point try your hardest to get into Levfin
FIG culture and hours are by far the worst in my experience. Stories of interns and analysts consistently pulling all nighters / late nights, and generally a very hierarchical, cold culture from what I've seen. Most deals are not M&A in nature, they do a lot of LevFin work, esp strong in the in fintech and broker advisory space. Vik Hebatpuria is a dog in that space and does a lot of deals. Would generally avoid unless you have an interest in FIG and are very willing to get cranked for subpar exits
I did not see a single US HC M&A deal in the span I was there. Not a single one. I have no idea what they do
GIG remains strong, paper and packaging team remains almost entirely CS incumbency but they get worked. Same with DI, industrial tech all strong sub-groups but prepare to grind. Still the best spot for buyout exits imo
This all sounds like one big no go
Feel like LevFin, Industrials, CR and Tech are decent spots at least for 2 year analyst programs. LevFin and Industrials because you get deal experience and good exits with multiple UMM PE offers from Industrial every year and UMM/MF PC from LevFin every year. CR has deals you can talk about for exits and good culture. Tech has relatively chill hours while somehow still having better exits than most UBS groups with solid UMM PE placements past 1-2 classes. Think every group has trade offs though outside of the 3 groups you should avoid (M&A,M&T, and RELL). Really dissatisfied as to how my own group placement worked, so made this post to hopefully have other people avoid getting mislead by propaganda during group placement.
I think the problem lies with how people think about UBS. After the CS acquisition most people expected it to be a real powerhouse, another BB that could compete with the big investment banks. That is clearly not the case, but the UBS today is similar to the UBS of the past... it's literally just a mid tier BB bank and if you go in with that expectation you can get appropriate results.
If you are an incomign summer and are truly interested in recruiting for whatever large cap buyout PE everyone wants your order of priority should prob be 1) re-recruit full time to a better platform that will do more M&A 2) Try and place into GIG, LF in that order
Like any other mid tier BB bank, it's possible to get the coveted exits that everyone wants but it is an uphill battle and probabilistically not likely even if you're a top performer. If you want to optimize then GIG has placed a handful analysts annually into large, high quality buyout funds. It's worth noting that many of these analysts in recent years were ex-CS analysts. Now that they're moving into the first batches of juniors that started their banking stint at UBS, you might see a difference in exits
Levfin is a top group, but from what I understand recruiting out of the group is considered somewhat taboo and difficult to be open about. If you're a top performer, prep well for interviews, you will 100% get high quality inbounds & interviews for PE and PC alike (as is confirmed the case for analysts in the group). There is obviously a skew towards PC given the skillset, and the exits per year reaffirm that.
The other groups are genuinely all the same. Sure C&R might be marginally better than XYZ but at the end of the day they are all very similar outside of GIG and Levfin.
To summarize - if your ultimate goal is to recruit for a UMM/MF PE program, your number 1 priority should be moving FT to a diff banking platform. Landing UMM seats out of GIG is possible but tough, it's even harder but still possible in levfin where you're more suited to exit to PC. The other industry coverage groups will have X number of exits in the past years, but these are all exceptions to the rule
Bro said chemicals has deal flow☠️☠️☠️
Can someone provide some insight into the issues with RELL specifically? Haven’t heard much about them
Bumping this
RELL has poor deal flow so it’s very pitch heavy. Hours are surprisingly bad but okay relative to other groups. Exits are not good.
Just not a good place to start your career unless you have no other options tbh
Currently work in operations, but have an opportunity to go to FIG. Come from a non-target, have always been interested in IB, but too much time has passed to enter GTP. Operations is a total drag. Is joining FIG still a favorable option, or should I pursue a position in S&T?
Would it be as an analyst?
Yeah., it would be analyst level
In general everytime you see an IB lateral position open, it’s because it’s a high turnover group with bad stuff happening.
Correct, currently all the ubs ib ny openings are in trash groups
I think there's 5 groups (3 if you don't care about WLB as a consideration) at UBS that anyone lateralling should even take a second look at broken into two categories of WLB groups and deal flow groups. The deal flow groups are LevFin/Industrials/CR. The WLB groups are Tech and Sponsors. Every other group is just sweaty but no deal flow, crap pay, and minimal exits.
If you lateral to HC, M&T, FIG, M&A etc, you are knowingly jumping into a hellhole where you’ll hate your life and your payout after two years is below market comp and a shitty LMM PE seat (if you’re lucky)
That's exactly why they likely have lateral seats open and are more open to non-traditional backgrounds as they cannot recruit from the traditional backgrounds. The best exits from those groups at JAMMBO 2-4bn PE firms with the average being LMM ones. At that point, just go to a MM.
If youre interested in data centers, the mid level people in M&T and RELL who run that coverage effort are the best! Highly recc working for them. They are always looking for new resources to abuse
M&T is all about doing some hundred hour analysis, with custom maps and graphics, on a deal concept no one ever asked for. Let’s present it to the company and tell the juniors “they are considering it but probably in a quarter or two” when the actual reaction was “no we’d never do that”
Wondering how M&T and Tech actually compare from an anonymous perspective.
From what I’ve heard, both don’t seem to have much flow outside of Tech ECM, though not sure how that translates given where the public markets are right now. I’ve generally heard positive things about the Tech seniors (outside of one junior legacy Barclays MD), but almost exclusively negative feedback on the M&T seniors.
Would love more detail on what exactly makes M&T so bad despite the lack of flow. I’m struggling to understand how hours can be that brutal without real deal activity.
…
Reposting from another thread (and it’s great that people finally have the balls to call this out)
UBS has the highest international/visa rate of the BBs.
there's poor culture because there is no culture - no shared upbringing, just a bunch of siloed internationals from india, china, korea, middle east, europe, australia, with a handful of americans.
add in the fact many of these internationals are unable to leave without facing deportation (and unable in this environment to get another job who will sponsor), and its created a truly miserable vibe.
think about it - what are the groups known for having better culture: Sponsors and Lev Fin; these groups have the highest number of americans on the team. Notice how they also have the best relationships and clients.
groups known for poor culture (M&A, FIG, M&T) - majority internationals. some ranks have 80% plus internationals (truly mind blowing honestly).
So you have no shared upbringing, imported facetime/caste culture from india/china, visa slaves, and a bunch of international bankers with accents trying to pitch and win midwestern american businesses owned by white boomers.
Agree with most of this. There is a strong correlation between internationals at associate and above levels and how bad the culture is. I will note LevFin is not a culture group, some terrible people in the group to work with as well. LevFin isn't also a relationship group, you are working on long internal credit memos all day. Great for buliding credit reps and exiting into PC, but not good for culture/WLB.
Best culture/WLB group at UBS is Sponsors and at a distant second, Tech. I have nothing against internationals and they are also victims in this as they are scared of losing their visa and jobs in America. I would strongly urge all interns to avoid M&A and M&T, have heard some real horror stories from both.
Some of them aren’t victims in this and deserve to lose their visa and job in America.
anyone know anything about the UGB (Unified Global Banking) group? Seems like they work on both the WM and IB side
Now group placement is over: I wish everyone who was still stupid enough to rank M&T or M&A or FIG or RELL good luck. Also would wish people in sponsors good luck, not sure I'd want to intern in a group that has very recently laid off analysts. You will soon find out why there is so many people annoyomously from those groups posting on WSO about how terrible UBS / their group is. Enjoy 3 AM's everyday for an analysis in a pitch that clients dismissed a minute into the meeting.
Tech GIG HC and CSR all also are atrocious. Not a single good group in the bank when Stifel has more M&A fees than UBS in the Americas
GIG and Tech still have good exits. GIG sends ~1/3rd of their class to UMM PE. Tech barely works and still has 1-2 people with UMM PE exits. Those are both pretty good groups to be a top-bucket analyst at least in terms of exits. That's pretty clearly different from M&T or M&A where almost all exits are to no-name LMM's. CR has good deal flow, even if they are mostly a chasing large deals group. UBS is the main bank for Celsius for example and also did the large Wallgreens deal as the lead financial advisor.
They’re about to experience the true meaning of pain
At some point, there's nothing you can do to help them if they ranked those groups high. There are various comprehensive posts on WSO about these groups and why they are so bad. I don't undersand how any sane person ends up ranking or even talking to M&A or M&T after all the posts on them.
If I had an internship in M&T or M&A or FIG or RELL, I would try to get the return offer but then leave for a different bank. Two months of horrific working conditions and culture is better than two years.
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