Best Response

I can't say much about the culture of the different banks - realistically, they're probably similar, and it'd be pretty group dependent anyways. Who did you find easier to get along with in interviews/when networking?

For prestige, BarCap would be tops (assuming this is in the U.S. or U.K.). They've been super strong and have grown rapidly since buying Lehman in 2008. BAML has been hit pretty hard, and while the Merrill Lynch unit is strong and performing very well, I think the company overall has too many issues. Citi is a good choice, but it too was hit badly during the crisis too and hasn't fully recovered.

I would go for BarCap, or if you preferred the culture/people at another one of the banks, you should try and leverage your offers to get guaranteed placement into your top choice group there (ie, tell Citi you'll only sign if they give you M&A, etc). But if you do try and leverage for placement, don't be too annoying about it... you don't want to start out on the wrong foot with your future employer/colleagues.

 
asiamoney:
...you should try and leverage your offers to get guaranteed placement into your top choice group there (ie, tell Citi you'll only sign if they give you M&A, etc). But if you do try and leverage for placement, don't be too annoying about it... you don't want to start out on the wrong foot with your future employer/colleagues.
This is horrible advice.
When one man, for whatever reason, has an opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
 
Clever Name:
asiamoney:
...you should try and leverage your offers to get guaranteed placement into your top choice group there (ie, tell Citi you'll only sign if they give you M&A, etc). But if you do try and leverage for placement, don't be too annoying about it... you don't want to start out on the wrong foot with your future employer/colleagues.
This is horrible advice.

If this is for a SA position, then it's not horrible advice at all. It happens a lot, and if you're polite and go about it tactfully, trying to leverage your offers is fine.

You shouldn't say something like "I'll only sign if I get M&A" (that was a poor example) but you can talk about how you are really set on M&A and it would help you with your decision between offers if you knew you had a good chance of being picked for that group, etc.

 
Clever Name:
asiamoney:
...you should try and leverage your offers to get guaranteed placement into your top choice group there (ie, tell Citi you'll only sign if they give you M&A, etc). But if you do try and leverage for placement, don't be too annoying about it... you don't want to start out on the wrong foot with your future employer/colleagues.
This is horrible advice.

Its not. It happens all the time. With that being said, Barcap is a better choice with regards to future prospects. Citi is notorious for working their SAs like dogs..Cant say much about BAML, except that without Merrill their CEO would've been sacked by now.

 

Citi M&A is not the only good group... many of their industry groups are very reputable and they send plenty of people to top PE if that's something you're concerned about...

Also, although Citi was hit hard during the financial crisis they've always been very strong. Notice how Barcap hasn't done better than Citi in M&A at any point since 07 and Citi was even stronger before then. It also seems like they've hired a ton of new people recently and are making a big push.

http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/F/11/Deals.html

It's only been about 2 months but Citi is top 3 right now (2012) for M&A.

Barcap is not Lehman (although if you speak with people who work there a lot of them really like to emphasize how many Lehman folks they've retained) and as for BAML I've seen more of their analysts get placed into top megafunds than barcap's analysts.

Go with whichever bank you liked best and have the best connections with so you can get good group placement.

 

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