Best group at lower performing bank or bad group at high performing bank
Saw this comparison in the “is bofa spiraling” thread and it made me wonder what other groups at “lower performing” or lower tier BBs would you take over a bad performing group at a higher performing firm
Someone said something along the lines of “Best group at Stifel > MM Regional BofA group”
Could you say the same thing about the worst group at GS/MS (whichever that may be I don’t know) about the best group at say a Citi/WF/DB or MM bank?
How do buyside opps/overall career development differ and anything else worth considering
Bump. Would love to hear thoughts
No, brand name is king. No one cares about specific group performance for recruiting after your analyst/associate job
That’s what I was assuming too when I saw the best Stifel group > shit BofA group. I’m sure though there are differences within the BBs.
Potentials (flame me if I’m wildly inaccurate):
Barclays FSG > Goldman Public Finance
Citi M&A > JPM Energy (excluding the case where both candidates want to go infra or climate PE, then I have no clue.)
WF Industrials > BofA FIG bank vertical (no deals, only pitch, and has a positive kill count)
Before anyone dare says congrats on WF, I’m a 1st year at a BofA/Barclays/Citi (ignore anon title)
False lol, some groups at top banks do no modeling or deals and HHs know about that. I'd rather be at Barclays sponsors than a GS/MS/JPM GCM team that does no modeling and doesn't get headhunter contact. People here overhype firm names because they are prestige whores, headhunters, and PE firms want brand names in school + bank + group as well as deal experience, all of those are required, and if you have no deal experience/bad group that has a much bigger detriment compared to a worse bank since all the BB/EB's get outreached to by headhunters anyways. If the convo was GS/MS/JPM GCM vs a random MM maybe it's different but no way it doesn't matter if it's between any BB/EB good groups vs top BB GCM.
You’re at Barclays and didn’t get GS we get it. You’re fine bro.
I think you might’ve been the only person who read this that thought I was talking about GCM
Citi catching strays
What? This is a horrible take. By the same logic, working at a shit fund finance group at Goldman is better than any other bb m&a/cov groups. This is never the case, both from a recruiter and personal standpoint.
Career banker, good group; exits, good brand
Stupid question but what’s a career banker?
So when you enter Investment Banking (IB) its very common after 2-3 years to move over to Private Equity (PE), Venture Capital (VC), or Hedge Funds (HF). Usually HF and PE though. So career banking is basically saying you aren't going to be one of the people to move industries and stay in IB for the long term.
Need input from someone a bit further in career as I’m sure opinions from 1st years don’t capture everything.
At the end of the day what’s the goal of brand name? To get a MF offer? You could go GS -> Apollo (axed after 2 years) -> HBS -> (fill in the rest w what you want to do), but if collecting brand names is all you do early, does it (generally speaking) translate to success later on?
Or is gaining expertise and being able to perform well more important. Obviously if you can do both you’re gonna be great wherever you end up, but sometimes I feel like the brand chasing is kinda a road without a clear end goal.
Would love insight on this
Imo, the general room of thumb for coverage/product groups that aren't like ECM/DCM/other capital markets stuff: is as long as within the same tier or only one tier below among the BBs, the best group at the worst bank is prob better than the worst group at the best bank.
So I would say like: BoFA M&A, Sponsors, REGL or Citi M&A, Sponsors are both groups I'd pick over like GS Mid Market banking
I would also pick Barclays Nat Res, PU&I, HC, or Sponsors or UBS Sponsors over BoFA's worst coverage team(though BoFA is a bit unique because their coverage teams do very little modeling but the same would apply to Citi) for instance. I also can see arguments for that over the GS middle market but I think since it's arguable don't think it's part of the rule of thumb(the argument basically being that one is fundamentally considered MM banking by headhunters while the others are still BB seats with relative(to the firm) good deal flow).
In the middle of those it gets rougher, but at some point it's just using logic. I think DCM teams in particular at top banks are worse as long as it's even 2 tiers down maybe even more depending on how you want to think about things. For context, am a current analyst at one of GS/MS/JPM. Also, I am not interested in the top groups at the other firms so apologize if wrong, I am just giving those as examples. I don't work at BoFA, Citi, UBS, or Barclays so just using the groups that I heard were top from people/WSO as examples regarding how to view things.
Would also add if you get stuck in dcm/ecm and you really didn’t want those groups, you should evaluate what went wrong.
I’m in one of those groups, and I’d say 1/2 the interns wanted to be there, and the other 1/2 were the ones no one else wanted. Some just focused too much time on the top 1-3 groups and didn’t have a backup, and some have 0 social or technical skills and it’s clear every group ranked them last. The former tend to be ok and ret a return managing to move internally for full time or after a year, rerecruit, or end up liking ecm and stay long term; the later don’t get a return and the entire group dislikes them.
if you’re at a bank where GCM doesn’t sit under IB and you end up in dcm/ecm and wanted coverage, you messed up during recruiting.
DCM/ECM are great if you want to learn soft skills, get earlier client skills, and want a predictable schedule. They are not good if you want technical skills or want to go to PE.
I would pick a top performing group at a low BB over MS Industrials
I think for long-term, going to the best group possible is the best bet, ignoring the perceived “preftige”. Like if you went to an ok group at an overall strong bank, I don’t think your deal experience would beat out someone at a great group at a decent bank.
Maybe not as important for the mega hardos looking to go on cycle with no deal experience however. But if you are going to a different job later, i think you’d be better off having run a few M&A deals where your group was the lead vs having participated in only a couple.
Maybe I can provide a more senior perspective here. Sadly part of the answer is always on the specific situation.
Brand is king, especially as you get further up the sellside. Some PE ate prestige gimps (you'll see all their hires are ex GS or MS or BBs).
However, Caveat that in my view taking a lower brand M&A or good coverage group (aka those who execute rather than pitch and chuck it over the fence) is a far better choice than a ECM group at a top shop.
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