BAML Commercial vs. SunTrust Corp banking?

Hi guys,

I've been a frequent reader here but haven't posted as I didnt have much value to add while being a college student. I am looking at two offers that I am having a hard time deciding between: BAML commercial banking vs. SunTrust corporate banking. baml gig is for Charlotte while SunTrust is in Atlanta. BAML would be 60k base and would be working in middle market, general industries group covering clients 50M-2B. SunTrust would be corporate banking (Team is considered part of the investment bank) and clients appear to be around 500m+ range. STRH offer is 70k base and looking at the compensation database it looks like they are getting 20k bonus at analyst level while BAML bonus appears to be much smaller.

While there is no doubt that STRH offers a better pay package, how about experience/exit opps. I enjoy credit and cash flow analysis and have had a brief stint working for a F50 in a corp finance role before coming across these positions. Ultimately I am much more interested in a transactional environment, working on various deals across different industries rather than working internally for 1 client and doing things such as budgeting/forecasting, managing cost center PNL, etc. Afterwards I would like to be in leveraged finance or a banking coverage group or corp banking at a BB. Though STRH pays more, they appear to be having some internal problems and going through restructuring in most of their markets. Also based on size of institutions what BAML considers to be middle market is corp banking for STRH and their highest level whereas corp banking at BB appears to be at the 2B+ range.

Would I be better off taking the BAML offer and networking internally to move into their corp banking or IBD or will STRH set me up better for what I want to do. I have seen general advice being that work for biggest most recognizable bank/company, which in this case would be BAML. I'm not sure if taking the lesser pay is worth being part of a stronger company and networking my way into the group of my choice. Thanks a lot for your feedback!

5 Comments
 
arner23

sorry, i don't really have any input on your question, but i'm wondering what types of "restructuring" STRH is going through and how that could be a bad thing? from what i've heard, they're expanding into cities like san fran, dallas, and chicago

Yeah from what I have seen / heard STRH is making a pretty strong push across the country and has been growing at a pretty fast clip

 

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