Barclays FSG vs Lazard M&A vs HL FRG
Got extended offers to these three for SA 2016 and was just wondering if someone could shed some light about the exit opps / pay / culture.
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What location(s)?
For Barclays and Lazard it's in NY. For HL it is for their LA office.
Congrats on your offers, you got yourself some great options, and to be honest I don't think you can go wrong with picking either of them but if you really want to nitpick:
Depends on your end goal, but assuming general PE exits, I'd go with Laz M&A > Barc FSG > HL RX in that order.
If you want anything related to distressed / or want to stay in the west coast, then of course HL should be your top choice (unless you get in to Laz's RX group via group placement).
If you're looking to go into general corporate development or do something non-finance in the future, then it'd be a toss up between Barc and Laz.
Culturewise, I can't speak for Laz, but I've heard from friends in both Barc FSG NY and HLHZ RX LA that culture is great in both. To be specific, RX is generally a lot slower right now (leading to better work life balance at least for now), and Barclays FSG group is really small just to begin with (only 5 analysts in NY) giving you more of a EB feel with a lot more modeling responsibility and lot less grunt/pitch/industry overview type work which are more handled by regular industry groups (Industrial/TMT etc.)
Hope this helps.
Congrats - Laz M&A and HL FRG are tippity-top groups on the street and extremely difficult to land. They are both known to have some of the hardest interviews around so you must be a top notch candidate to have gotten both.
Echo what was said above for the most part. In spite of it being a BB, I would probably toss out Barcap just because the best BB Sponsors groups are really CS, BAML, MS, JPM.
Your choice is really between Laz M&A & HL FRG.
Laz M&A will be a bigger analyst class, culture in spite of what said here in WSO is fine but you will work a lot as they get a ton of deal flow. People take them over top BB / EBs all the time and they have very good exit opps for top analysts - some MFs, most MM PE, Corp Dev, etc.
HL FRG will be a smaller more tight-knit class. Have heard conflicting things about culture - NY is supposed to be great, London is supposed to be really bad, and LA is probably somewhere in the middle. Very good exits into top distressed HF / PE, Credit Funds, MF Distressed Arms, MM PE in the offices mentioned above. People take them all the time over top BB / EBs as well especially if interested in distressed or if it a super down market like 2008. They've been winning the most deals in the past couple of years in a down RX market and are really the market leaders (in terms of global fees) in RX, meaning you will work a lot due to the abundant deal flow.
Laz RX is also fantastic but very few spots for analysts and group placement during FT. They have the best sovereign debt RX practice and It is the most competitive group to get into at MBA Level but at analyst level a tiny bit easier since a lot analysts will prefer TMT and HC. Used to be the market leaders (in terms of global fees) in the RX space but now seems to be #2 behind HL for the past several years. Still unreal place to be but there is supposedly a lot turnover at the senior levels currently.
Hope this was helpful and good luck with your choice.
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