Best Groups at BBs, Best Banks for certain Groups Ranking

Just wondering about street perception on ranking the bulge brackets/elite boutiques across the major industry and product groups:

(As in which firms have the strongest groups for some of these)

M&A
Equity
Debt
Healthcare
TMT
Industrials
Consumer/Retail
Energy
Real Estate
LevFin
Financial Sponsors
FIG

My perception has always been that there's a lot of variation, with some groups considerably stronger or weaker at certain banks (even at the BBs), so I think it might be helpful for people weighing offers, trying to pick groups strategically, or looking to get into a particular industry/product and want a strong group.

Also which groups do you think are strongest (relative to the other banks, not in terms of which groups get the best deal flow, etc) at each of the BBs?

 

Yes, but certain rainmaking MDs have retired or left to do their own thing (re: Skip McGee). BarCap has traditionally been very strong (and they still are), but there are other shops that are now currently on equal footing with them on top of the hill (in Houston at least - not sure what other shops, if any, have a NatRes presence in NYC beyond Chemicals/Downstream activity).

 
Controversial

To add a few more names:

M&A - Morgan Stanley, GS, JPM

Debt - Citi, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPM

Healthcare - JP Morgan, GS, MS

TMT - Goldman Sachs, MS, JPM, BAML, Qatalyst

Industrials - Citi, GS

Consumer/Retail - GS, Lazard, BAML, Centerview, JPM, Barclays

LevFin - BAML, JPM, CS

Natural Resources - MS, Barclays, GS, Citi, BAML

Power & Utilities - Barclays, Citi, GS

Generally, MS and GS are always at least top 3; and JPM/Citi/BAML are usually in the top 5/6 for every industry.

 

JP Morgan definitely does not have the top HC group. Not sure why everyone thinks this. If you look at deal flow over the past few years, it's clearly a race between GS and MS.

 

Here's a post I made earlier this year


lapike:

All of the below are based on either league tables, hearsay or my own prejudices. Feel free to dispute.

Consumer: JPM or Goldman or Barclays
Energy & Power: MS or Citi or Evercore
FIG: JPM
Healthcare: JPM
Natural Resources: BMO, RBC, Macquarie Industrials: Citi or BAML or JPM
TMT: Goldman or BAML or JPM
Retail: Goldman
RGL: Goldman or JPM

Middle Market MM Consumer: Lazard, followed closely by Houlihan, Baird, Blair
MM Healthcare: Jefferies and Piper, but Baird and Blair are nipping at their heels
MM Industrials: Baird by far
Place where my friends who went there are the happiest: SunTrust, TD
MM Restructuring: Houlihan
MM TMT: Jefferies, Blair, Baird - but this is a huge tossup depending on how you cut it.


 

CS Sponsors is strong because of the modeling they do and the books they have. Would say power and utilities is very strong at CS but recently had a big departure so not sure what will happen.

 
Most Helpful

Putting league tables aside, CS Sponsors is excellent from a skillset development standpoint because they do both standard coverage group work (re M&A) as well as Leveraged Finance work (negotiating commitment papers). At BBs, usually groups are one or the other - if you're in M&A you won't know as much about debt and if you're in LevFin, you miss out on the intricate modeling experience that you only get in a coverage group (i.e. building a Company's operating model and actually putting thought into it vs. just hard coding in whatever revenue/EBITDA figures are given on the CIM to spit out a debt repayment % for leveraged lending guidelines)

CS Sponsors is one of the rare groups that combines both skillsets, making it essentially the perfect group to prep you for PE recruiting. This is what makes the group such a powerful platform from a junior experience standpoint. Of course the fact that CS is also one of the most aggressive LBO financing banks out there also helps

By the way just so you know, LF&OR only deals with corporate issuers, not sponsor backed stuff (that will all be run by the financial sponsors group). So think large corporate frequent HY issuers like American Airlines, T-Mobile, Digital Globe, Hertz, Valeant, and in Europe, clients like Altice, Liberty Global, those kind of issuers. You do all the modeling and all that but given 80% of your work is just on refinancings / repricings (almost no acquisition financings), I've heard from a number of peers that it gets quite dull

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