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Given your background, I think you should figure out what space you want to work in. If you want to work on mega deals, go with the BB, although I don't think it's fair to group CS and JPM/GS/MS in the same tier. Personally, I like MM PE much better and a top MM M&A shop will set you up extremely well for MM PE.
Thanks for your input. My biggest concern is that even though BB sounds great, I'm not sure if going into the natural resources group will position me as competitively as a top MM M&A group. From what I've been able to gather...M&A is preferred over industry coverage..let alone Nat. Res. when it comes to PE. I'm not even sure if Natural Resources have good PE placements. I guess I'm losing sleep over whether I should try to catch the big fish with the BB offer (higher likelihood of striking out in PE recruiting due to limited opps) or go with a safer approach with the MM offer which should provide more opps. Also, will BB Nat Resources be as competitive as top MM M&A if I go for MM PE?
Here's what I would recommend. Pick 5 PE firms that you think you might want to target. Then go to the "Team" section of their website and take a look at where their associates come from. If you're looking at firms that are raising $1bn+ funds, you're going to see a very, very heavy weighting toward BB's and almost no MM guys.
If you're fine with NR then I'd take the BB offer. You'll be making more, and almost all PE firms (including MM PE) that would hire from a top MM would also hire from one of those BB firms (but the reverse is not true). Whether the bank calls you a first or second year doesn't really matter since PE firms will view you as an IB analyst who's just starting out.
Also what is EC? Evercore? That's not a top MM - they are an elite boutique and compete with the BB firms for deals.
I would prefer M&A / LevFin. I just don't know too much about the placement opps for someone out of BB Nat. Res. For example, there are some groups such as BB DCM who still pale in comparison to top MM M&A when it comes to PE recruiting. I know this is a first world problem to have...but just want to make sure cover my bases. Thanks for your input!
Well DCM pales because it's not really an IB group - it's a tweener that straddles IB and S&T. Natural resources would be a fine coverage group to be in for PE recruiting (and it's not as if you'll ONLY have opportunities in energy PE, but there will certainly be more of a weighting that way compared to if you started in like consumer or something). You should have plenty of M&A out of a natural resources coverage group.
Again, if EC is Evercore, then I'd be giving some serious thought there since you'll be doing lots of large (BB size range) M&A.
Just to reiterate, the elite boutique M&A banks are in a class of their own; they don't have the balance sheet, but they are very competitive compared to their BB counterparts.
And I agree with the above comments. Going to a BB will typically give you a better chance to get into PE, but be sure that you like the idea of working in Natural Resources in case you end up going to a BB PE fund.
CHItizen Thanks for the insight! And yes EC is Evercore in this case.
It seems like the consensus here is that BB Coverage Group will be the best option here since it will give me access to 1B+ PE funds (even though it will be highly competitive) as well as MM PE.
PE recruiting normally occurs very early, like 9 months into the job. The class that is starting now (summer 2015) will start interviewing in Feb/March/April 2016 for positions that start in summer 2017. In other words, most analysts that go into PE won't have 3 years under their belt anyway (and even less experience at the time of the interview/offer), and in your case, you'll be recruiting along with them so I don't see much of an issue. You can also try positioning your past experience as a leg up over other candidates in many ways as well.
Thank you very much! I appreciate the insight. I have a much better understanding of the PE recruiting cycles now.
Lastly, let's say hypothetically...it's between BB Coverage and Evercore M&A w/ the goal of upper MM/ large PE funds. What would you choose and why?
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