Best banks in Houston?

Wanted some perspective on what the best shops currently are in Houston. Are JPM/GS/JEF/EVR/TPH/RBC/CITI still the dominant forces? 

Heard culture is horrible at GS/JPM and JEF comp isn’t lights out like it used to be, but this is mainly from threads I’ve read on this site that are a few years old. 

What do exits look like from top banks given funds have been pulling out of traditional energy? Does exposure to renwable/enegy transition deals set you up better for PE and what does the renewables scene look like down in Houston? 

Apologies for the barrage of questions, and thanks in advance for any insight! Really appreciate it.

15 Comments
 

Middle market deals with a decent handle on OFS. You won’t get great looks for exits prob but based on the people I’ve spoken to there, they have a great culture with decent hours.

 

I would say your list is about right... I’m more so interested to see what’ll happen when deal activity picks back up. It’s been pretty cold right now, and things can definitely change up if oil prices go up.

 
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I will comment on one aspect of your post: Funds pulling out of Energy.

This might have been true a few years back but while the rest of the PE industry is finding it difficult to raise funds, Energy PE has been humming along just fine.

Here’s a list of recent fund raises in the past two years(primarily upstream focused):

Quantum: $10 Bn
EnCap: $6 Bn
NGP: $3 Bn
Kayne Anderson: $2 Bn
Andros: $1 Bn
Carnelian: $1 Bn
Pearl: $1 Bn
Saxum: $500 MM

There’s some bigger funds that don’t have dedicated pools of capital that are investing billions every year: Oaktree, Elliott, Sixth Street, Citadel, Apollo (focused more on credit and Minerals)

There’s also a lot of other family offices that have investment teams that have a lot of Money: Westlawn, Wincoram, EOC, etc.

All that to say, there’s more energy focused dry powder today than at any point over the past 7-10 years.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply --- I'm assuming the opposite is true for renewables funds? Heard they got a lot of traction a few years ago but not sure about the scene now. Are prospects still decent for an analyst staffed on a high number of ET deals and/or even a dedicated ET team like we see with Citi or Jefferies?

 

Prospect in IB - Cov:

Thanks for the detailed reply --- I'm assuming the opposite is true for renewables funds? Heard they got a lot of traction a few years ago but not sure about the scene now. Are prospects still decent for an analyst staffed on a high number of ET deals and/or even a dedicated ET team like we see with Citi or Jefferies?


While ET fundraising has certainly slowed down, it hasn’t completely vanished like upstream fundraising did for a few years.

You’ll be just fine in an ET dedicated spot. You’ll be able to parlay your experience into both ET spots but also infra PE roles and a lot of the ET companies you’ll be working with will have industrials-type business models so you should be able to see some of those roles as well.

 

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