What are the strongest IBD groups in the LA area? I know Moelis LA has great exit ops, but how about Houlihan Lokey, Guggenheim, and Lazard? Heard Guggenheim does all their retail deals out of LA, but any other insight would be helpful.
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Interested as well.
Many of the BBs have gaming / sponsors work being done out of LA. This is the case with Barclays and MS, at least with gaming & maybe some other RE work. CS has a good generalist sponsors group in LA as well, and some of the RE MDs are based out of the LA office
There's actually quite a few WSO pages on LA groups. Best exits opps are CS LA, Moelis LA, GS LA and Barclays FSG LA. I've heard MS is good too but I can't confirm. However all the LA BB/EBs +HL/Gugg/Roth will get you HH looks because you'll have great deal experience. The banks only have a presence in LA to primarily to accommodate the Heavy hitters that run the offices. They'd all move their staff back to SF and NY in a heartbeat if they could to cut some costs.
I'm not familiar with JPM and Macquarie though. Jefferies has only senior bankers in LA.
Not sure where you get this from. Financial Sponsors is huge in LA due to the plethora of funds out there. GS has all their media relationships in LA, Ken Moelis built the firm out of LA (even though technically based in NY) and HL's headquarters is in LA.
Yeah, Moelis and HL are an exception since they were started in LA.
I'm just repeating what some MDs/EDs based out of LA have told me. Plenty of Sponsors, Media, Gaming & Lodging groups in NY that cover the same clients covered by some LA groups. i.e Gaming & Lodging coverage for Moelis is run out of NY even though Ken Moelis was originally a G&L banker.
As always, it depends on what you want to do. The great part about LA banking is its diversity. Here are some thoughts to consider:
Sell-side M&A: Moelis, Lazard, HL - Moelis is Moelis but coffee is only for closers there; Lazard is an elite office so I hope you went to USC or Ivey; HL has a lot of different opportunities to focus on an industry you like
FSG: Barclays, CS - equally strong, CS is a bigger office but Barclays tends to have a 100% FT conversion rate which is worth considering. Both have very strong, close knit cultures. Potentially the safest exit opps to PE.
Real Estate: lots of banks have these groups and it tends to be led by very senior people (e.g. several banks have their global head of group in LA), if you're interested in the sector, this is the place to be
Generalist: MS, GS, JP, BAML perhaps in this order, all are very strong.
Metals and Mining: Both Citi and Macquarie have their global heads sitting in LA.
CRG: Guggenheim. Look no further.
Can't comment on others.
Great post.. only thing i would add is Centerview opened up shop in LA. Rothschild is also out here.
You do not want to go to Macquarie for a large number of reasons.
Is the Centerview LA office going to be big?
Why not Macquarie?
In LA, it's Moelis or bust. Go to NY for IB and come back to LA for PE if that is really where you want to be. Unless you can land Moelis LA
Anyone care to rank the top LA offices for investment banking? (Originally Posted: 04/04/2011)
Even word of mouth or just your own opinion rankings would be fine (I would appreciate if you let me know that's just your opinion though).
Thanks!
In my mind, just from browsing through the previous threads about various branches of investment banks in LA, it goes something like... 1) Moelis & Co LA 2) GS LA 3) MS LA 4) UBS LA 5) CS LA 6) Barcap LA
i would move CS LA to the #3 spot
Let's end rankings.
Not going to rank because it is almost impossible. MS/Moelis/CS/GS are all great experiences.
HLHZ...this is their backyard
id put cs la at or near the top. look the exit opps for their analysts. year in and year out theyre sending kids to Leonard Green, ares, and all of the other top funds in the area. not to mention some of them go to megafunds out east. i havent heard too much about ms la.
land offers at all those places then you can look at ranking.
fucking joke. where is HLHZ restructuring or Lazard la?
Wow, thanks for the replies everyone.
I'm interning at a BB in NYC this summer and I'm hoping to get a FT job in LA... My first choice is definitely Moelis & Co followed by GS, MS, and CS. Going to be tough =/
Are there any other good offices worth applying to? I heard HLHZ isn't that great.
Well in terms of placement opportunities GS, MS and CS is going to be extremely competitive or darn near impossible, because they have tiny offices in LA. Plus you will be competing with all the kids from UCLA and USC.
Don't know much about Moelis but I assume placement there will be quite competitive as well. I don't know what you've heard but HLHZ it is definitely a power in restructuring - they just moved into MGM's former headquarter. Their corp fin practice is solid in the middle market space; I've definitely seen a lot of HLHZ alum placed into MM PE funds in LA. Other LA firms to consider - Greenhill (extremely tiny office as well), Jefferies and Maquarie (they have a really sick office in Century City - you can almost see the Pacific Ocean from their lobby).
If you are going for the name-brand BB firms and want mega fund exit ops, I say stay in NYC, or go to San Fran.
+1 sb for the pic
Are all the BB firms in NYC equivalently good in SF? I mean, SF is definitely an option. I'd prefer LA, but I could forego 4 more years to have a cush career in LA later on.
some fishy comments in post above. gs, ms and cs la offices are not all ucla and usc. there's a strong number (probably more) of kids from berkeley as well. also, last time i heard the cs la office wasnt "tiny". i work in pe in the la area, and have not really seen hlhz people. can you provide examples? (maybe i havent looked around hard enough). lastly, anyone suggesting maquarie as a place to check out has to have questionable judgment...
MS Menlo
Are the people who go for SF and LA IB mainly from regional schools (Berk,UCLA,USC) like it is for Houston (UT,Rice)?
Have seen a lot of Wharton representation on West Coast too.
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