Are Senior level employees (VP/SVP/MD) working more or less at boutique banks?
Recently accepted an offer to work at an M&A and capital markets boutique firm. It is about 20 people, 8 Senior level employees, and they do a lot of their deals in mostly two sectors. They often compete with firms like Piper Sandler, Deloitte, Mizuho, and SocGen for deals around 300m - 600m. However, the firm also rivals prominent banks in the industry sector for big $1b+ deals, such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and BofA. Their deal sourcing comes from sources and relationships they already established and the firm only does 5-8 deals a year.
Generally, you hear that boutique firms have slightly better work hours but at a firm with 20 employees including back-office roles. Considering the significance of these deals, do you have any idea about the typical work hours for VPs and MDs?
P.S. - I think the phrase elite boutique is pretentious, but in this case, would this firm fit the description of one as they are proven to compete with BB's in their sector?
Based on the most helpful WSO content, the workload at boutique firms can vary greatly. In some cases, senior employees at boutique firms may have more hands-on involvement in deals, which could potentially lead to longer hours. However, this isn't a hard and fast rule.
In the case of your firm, given the size and the number of deals per year, it's likely that senior employees are quite involved in the deal process. This could mean longer hours, especially when a deal is in progress. However, it's also possible that the workload is more balanced, with busy periods around deal times and quieter periods in between.
As for whether your firm would be considered an "elite boutique", it's hard to say without more information. The term "elite boutique" is often used to describe smaller firms that are able to compete with bulge bracket banks on high-profile deals. If your firm is regularly competing with and winning against larger banks on billion-dollar deals, it could potentially fit this description. However, the term is somewhat subjective and can vary depending on who you ask.
Sources: boutique v BB, Will "Rising EBs" ever become EBs? Do they even want to become EBs?, WSO 2022 Investment Banking Work-Conditions Survey (Part 1/3)
Why would it matter if it is “elite” or not?
Sounds like a good place in the target sectors which, assuming what you are saying is true, should give you good deal visibility / decent exit opps which is, at the end of the day, what you should be focusing on
Got it thank you! and the elite doesn't matter I was more just curious lol
Deal count is a much bigger factor in the workload than deal size. The problem with bigger deals is that they attract many more hands to the pot, and thus there can be a lot more coordinating that needs to go on, but generally the big parts of a deal (Model, CIM, MP, Pitch, etc.) are going to still be the same. So, if you are at a LMM firm and are churning deals, you will probably end up working more. Also, MDs at BBs will probably take a cut of the financing as well, meaning if they get a good deal, they can make up for lost pitches on other M&A transactions.
One other thing I have noticed over time is that the more focused a firm/seniors are, the less work juniors will do. AKA generalist analyst will sometimes get weird request that can take a while to complete. Also, if it takes you a while to get up to speed on a sector or client then you are going to just have more work to do.
Overall, your situation seems like a good place seems like all juniors will have a deal or two a year, some pitch work, and then the general management stuff that comes with banking. Maybe your MDs work less, but honestly it probably is a little bit of a well run shop vs poorly run shop question.
Edit/Addition: I want to clarify, by well run shop vs. poorly run shop I mean do your MDs have target funds and groups where they have great relationships and are a first call when work comes up, or do you have MDs that are chasing everything in the world even if you have <1% chance of winning the mandate.
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