Best Chicago bank to be a long term industrials banker?
Interested only in Chicago at one of the Chicago feeders, what’s the best bank to be at if wanting to stay.
Also,
How would you compare bb and eb shops like gs, citi, pwp, moelis in chicago to the top 4 mm's(blair,baird,lincoln,gugg)?
Bump
So admittedly not an expert on the Chicago Industrials IB scene, but can propose a few thoughts:
Blair - Blair is a strong (top? I am not knowledgeable enough to know for certain) shop in the Industrials market, and one of the stronger banks in Chicago (HQ in Chicago, which I assume you know). From what I can tell, their US Industrials group is based out of the Chicago office, but again I am not 100% certain (looked at some of their Industrials MDs and many of the US ones were Chicago-based). If you can get placed on the right deal team, Blair can provide for an exceptional experience. A colleague of mine loved it there, said it was about 100x better than MM PE.
I am surprised you heard amazing things about Lincoln's Industrials group. I have been on the other side of the table on one of their processes and the asset they were pitching wasnt very attractive and I could tell that the junior bankers were being worked to death. To be fair, this was in 2021 when deal volume was at an all time high. Sitting at the MP, I was genuinely worried about the Associate's health.
Biggest problem with Blair rn is they basically haven't paid bonuses in 2 years... They overhired in 2021 (especially at their "partner" level) and when deals dried up in 22/23 they got stuck paying out guarantees to new hires and were effectively underwater. Don't know if they've been able to claw their way back this year though.
Still would agree they're one of, if not the, top industrials firms. Baird and Lincoln both decent MM industrials practices there but had a similar experience buying a Lincoln business where the junior team was clearly getting smoked.
Yeah I certainly agree on all of the points you've made, it seems like Blair really cut heads since the 2021 peak, even more severely than most other banks.
It will be interesting to see how next steps play out for WB, but I would expect that the worst is behind them and that they will recover. After two years of severe layoffs and no bonuses, I would assume they've righted their P&L sufficiently.
The question is about Chicago industrials and Baird is #1 out of all MMs, BBs and EBs in Chicago for Industrials.
No other group has as good of deal flow.
How is Baird in Chicago vs MKE?
At the junior level there's no difference in experience. However all the best senior Industrials bankers sit in Milwaukee which might limit growth in Chicago
How would you compare bb and eb shops like gs, citi, pwp, moelis in chicago to the top 4 mm's(blair,baird,lincoln,gugg)?
Is is still 80+ hours per week at both locations?
Houlihan has a strong industrial group in Chicago, but it's Houlihan...
Care to elaborate?
Care to elaborate?
Been on the other side of several HL industrial deals. They are notorious for trying to push through crazy PF Adjustments and running bad processes. They always have good deal flow and some MDs are better than others, but just about every deal they bring to market has some hair to it, nothing is straight forward.
HL industrials runs really weirdly organized processes and brings their assets out with crazy adjustments lol
Their juniors also get absolutely cranked but so does everyone so
.
They compete for different deals so your experience is going to be different at a BB vs. MM. This is my high level view as in industrials banker (at an EB in NY but moved from Chicago market in ~2018)
If you want to be in the main office (or one of the main offices) then probably Baird / Blair / Lincoln are your best bet. To me they are virtually indistinguishable maybe a slight edge to Baird / Blair since they tend to be on bigger things
These are all regional offices for the BB's and EB's so you're talking a handful of MDs and probably utilizing a bunch of NY resources on deals anyway. My perception not backed by any hard facts is that MS and JPM are probably the best BB's there and seem to operate pretty standalone. I'm sure they do in some capacity but never really came across Citi / GS, etc. deals where it seemed clear that this was a Chicago deal but that is completely anecdotal.
Won't comment on EB's due to bias :)
Thanks a lot for the answer
-If you had to restart and stay in Chicago would you go for the mms or bb/ebs if you had the option?
-Regarding career compensation and future exits to a CFO type role in 25ish years, which would you say is better?
-In terms of a lateral would you say going from lincoln/blair/baird/gugg to a bb/eb is easier or the other way around?
Thanks again.
Was an analyst at a Chicago MM firm… If you want to be a career banker, I’d argue best place to do it is one of the MM banks.
- easier promotion track. Generally more home grown talent and these banks and a clear ladder from analyst all the way up to MD. Seen good productive people get all the way to MD by their early 30s without an MBA or anything. Rarely see this at BB banks
- always good to be at HQ. IMO, easier to make a career where you’re in the same office as the execs rather than a satellite office.
- similar (if not better) comp in long run and easier to get it. It’s a lot easier to do 4 PE sell-sides in a year than one big public transaction. Less execution risk and more balanced economic cycles. At these MM banks, you see a ton of people that do a bunch of deals as a VP, own the relationship, and then win the mandate as a director or MD a few years down the road when the PE firm sells. In my view, this is a much easier way to make a living because you can build relationships with the ~20 PE firms that matter in your coverage and get decent ongoing business. So much easier than just big public company deals
There are certainly cons around prestige, exits, etc but I would argue MM is best if you want career banker in Chicago
GS
have heard horrible things ngl. Especially, industrials.
Curious if there’s any word on Citi’s chicago offfice?
Senior MD just retired and Head of Office left for Cantor Fitzgerald
I also heard that people are getting poached away and firms that are looking to build out CHI presence already acted.
Any idea why this is happening? Just curious
NOT BGL!!!!
bro hates his bank.
Moelis chicago is very strong within Industrials but also allows for juniors to work on M&A, rx, TMT, FIG and other spaces. Would definitely take a look at them although classes tend to run extremely lean
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