Best non-BB banks

In Europe, regional banks can be strong, for instance BNP or Société Générale in France, BBVA or Banco Santander in Spain

UniCredit, mediobanca (more boutique style), RBS, commerzbank, Credit Agricole cib, ABN AMRO, rabobanks asset managment unit robeco (PE, FOF and the likes)

all fairly solid (you might argue about rbs)

Boutique and middle market banks like Lazard, Greenhill, Evercore, Rothschild, Perella Weinberg Partners, Jefferies, Moelies, Centerview, Oppenheimer, RBC Capital Markets, Houlihan Lokey etc

as you can tell by the comments, there are tons. taking the BB or bust approach is like not going to college unless you get into HYP. nothing wrong with wanting to go BB but understand that there are many other great options out there and that you even might prefer and/or perform better at a MM or boutique

He's probably exploring that, good to see someone inquiring about more than "WHAT GROUP SHOULD I TAKE BESIDES GS TMT."

Evercore, Blackstone Advisory.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that Moelis, RBC, and Jefferies are considered in the "best" category.

Besides the BB's, there are the "Elite Boutiques" which consist of:

Evercore, Greenhill, Moelis, Centerview, Qatalyst, Blackstone, Perella Weinberg, Lazard

Then there is everyone else. Which is thousands of investment banks.

HLHZ, Jefferies, Rothschild, etc.

Maybe if you gave us a region where you'd like to work and a specific industry/product group, we can help more.

For instance non-BB tech in bay area... etc.

what do you mean by best?

advisory? what industry?

international presence?

leveraged finance?

this is just another stupid topic that should be closed--and the board maker should be banned from this site

^ agree with solidarity

ALL non-BB banks are complete shit except the following:

"Evercore, Greenhill, Moelis, Centerview, Qatalyst, Blackstone, Perella Weinberg, Lazard" - nutsaboutWS (although I don't know about Qatalyst)

Anyone who says otherwise has an inferiority complex and would rather work at a BB than whatever bullshit boutique they posted. Houlihan Lokey, are you kidding me son, who would do MM over BB.

Qatalyst is a beast in tech. And unfortunately you are wrong. There are a lot of good MM/boutiques out there.

Moelis, Jefferies, Evercore, Greenhill Lazard, KBW

Ignorant.

there are a lot of good MM/boutiques out there and it really depends on the person who chooses which place fits his/her personality better. I have seen dumb/brilliant guys in both MM and BBs

We know the HZ got dropped. Qatalyst shits on tier 3 BB's. If I wanted Tech PE, I would take it over most groups at MS/GS/JPM.

Get to a top group, then you can talk. But by then, you'll probably not be so ignorant.

DaCarez -- what boutiques are consistently winning buy-side mandates?

dukeofduke --again, you completely missed the point. Houlihan and Rothschild have better restructuring groups than BB's. Arbitrarily assigning "prestige points" to certain banks has very little meaning.

to be honest, I'm sorry that you have such an inferiority complex. I'm assuming you're a Wharton kid. The Harvard and Princeton kids I know wouldn't give a rat's ass about this.

Solidarity - can't say for certain, it's been my observation that buysides are more relationship-/favor-driven - i.e. this banker got shafted on a previous deal for me, let me give him this buyside, etc. or I like this guy, I've worked with him for a long time, so who else would I call for that

Thanks for the insight

I was just under the impression that most large buy-side tech deals went to BB's based on whoever was able to pitch the best financing terms and that boutiques rarely ever led on those transactions.

Sorry, I was thinking about it more from within the BB framework, not as much BB vs. boutique. Question is whether the buyer (strategic, sponsor deals tend to go to BBs for this reason) needs financing? If Yes, then they'll more likely than not hire a BB with a giant balance sheet (see: AT&T hiring JPM along with GHL and EVR), at which point it becomes a mix of terms along with the above relationships / will-my-board-buy-into-my-choice-of-advisor.

DaCarez is bitter that his group got shafted on 3Par... I kid I kid... Not really.. Hope that breakup fee was worth the week of all nighters... Stop hating on Qatalyst because they know how to earn FEES... haha