B Riley, Blair, Stifel, Baird, Lincoln - Any Insight?
Has anyone worked at any of these firms, or heard anything about the cultures, deal flow, organization, management, hours, etc? Any insight would be great.
Thanks -
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Close with a couple guys at Lincoln. Really strong culture and pay street, sometimes better depending on performance. They’ve been given a bad rep due to an analyst passing away, but from everything I’ve heard the culture is actually pretty good (at least in terms of banking). They have high dealflow by volume and most transactions range between $100-300M, but they’ve recently had a few push towards $1B. Big international focus as well.
I have less insight on Blair, Baird, and Stifel but they are all well-regarded. Don’t know as much on B. Riley. Can’t really go wrong with any of these firms.
Going to be a bit group/office dependent
In aggregate:
Blair (HC, tech, business services all strong groups) Baird (very good industrials, business services)
Lincoln (decent culture, smaller deals than the two above, on average - the quality of materials gap between the tiers cannot be ignored) Stifel (bigger deals, but lower volume, lots of shit work, pitches, poor culture)
B. Riley (worst pay of the group, poor culture from what I've been told, weakest reputation and deal flow)
Baird and Blair are quite similar and generally regarded as the top in the middle market. I know Baird has seen like 6 straight years of record revenue and Blair has mirrored that growth. Both are also privately held, so bonuses are all cash and you have the ability to buy into the company which is pretty cool. Compensation is generous.
As noted above, Baird may have the strongest focus on industrials while Blair it's tech and healthcare--but we are splitting hairs. They are both top in the MM and see strong deal flow across the groups. Baird does have protected Saturdays, but hours will be fairly long and group dependent at either. Culture is subjective but there is a noticeable difference in people's attitudes at these midwest-based firms, and particularly these two with the private model.
Lincoln plays a bit below these two, newer overall, smaller size deals, but very strong deal flow by volume. Nearly exclusively sell-side M&A, vs. a Baird where you could still have some capital markets exposure (if that matters to you). Similar cultural benefit--but perhaps less structurally so.
I don't know anybody at Stifel and don't know anything about B Riley unfortunately so will refrain.
People may disagree, but generally I think that Blair & Baird have stronger brands than RBC, and maybe marginally so vs. Jefferies. They know what they are (MM) and are among the best at it, whereas I feel like the perception is RBC and Jefferies sometimes try to go upmarket, but then are not BBs...if that makes sense. Jefferies Houston is a different animal so I won't touch it.
Baird/Blair attract top talent who often self select for location, culture or MM (particularly post-MBA, healthy Booth/Kellogg representation). There seems to be wild longevity at both firms--maybe due to culture/private ownership model?
Lots of intangibles and subjectivity so perhaps that isn't helpful, but anecdotally, there were people at my school (top 10 MBA) who picked Baird/Blair over middle BBs (Barclays, Citi, CS) and a few who wanted Baird/Blair but got dinged landed at RBC, UBS, Wells, and HL.
Could be different from an analyst perspective.