Best Teams at BofA London

Thank you, do you have insights on other teams?

Whats your source/experience? 

Worked with energy/consumer as an intern - great team culture and very supportive + great exposure to mid-level seniors. Hours are long for energy but that's across the street while the consumer team is a bit chill.

Healthcare hours are quite chill and the team culture is one of the best - low turnover because people choose to stay. (Team is top 3 in EMEA healthcare)

SA

What makes you say BofA's London REGL team is weak?

TMT announced 2 deals last month, all A&As are on deals

Hey there! There's already a couple of threads on this that provide decent information, although somewhat outdated in some cases. For full disclosure, I'm a second year analyst at Bofa LDN, but I'm not in one of the groups that are generally considered to be the "best", so no conflict of interest in that regard. Also, I have just gone through the process of recruiting interns into our team (bofa summer internship is rotational and we have to choose interns among the intern class) and therefore have got a pretty decent idea of what interns think of teams in the bank. The below classification is based on 1) deal flow, 2) exits, 3) prestige within the bank, 4) prestige outside the bank, 5) culture.

Tier 1A: M&A, Healthcare

• Bofa Healthcare is top 2 team in EMEA, only comparable with JPM Healthcare (maybe GS). Great culture, great dealflow and great exits. What else could you ask for? The downside is that the team is small and has low rotation. They take in very few analysts.
• M&A is by far the most sought after team by new analysts. It has some of the strongest MDs in the bank (and the street), with a couple of them consistently making the list of the top dealmakers in EMEA (Ferrari, Brabazon, Illes ...). It is not a process team as some people claim; I have worked repeatedly with people from M&A and they almost always hold the pen on the financial/merger model, even if the operational model generally sits with the industry teams. Also, they do almost exclusively execution, which let me tell you is a big plus (and very attractive to the buyside). I think culture is good as well, although to be honest I'm not as familiar with it.

Tier 1B: Industrials, Energy

• Great dealflow, but very big team so dealflow per A&A not so great. Team is so big relative relative to the fees it generates because it does a lot of pitching. Some A&As in the group do all the execution (or the relevant execution) while the rest just does pitching. Still the team is well regarded in the street and it gives you a bit of a generalist experience (it covers many different industries). Culture is probably the best in the bank, probably because its such a A&A heavy team.
• Energy give its A&As the best modelling experience, which make them attrative to the buyside and therefore exits are great. However, it is a complete sweatshop and culture is a bit nerdy. Dealflow is OK, it has some big and relevant deals from time to time, but also a lot of pitching.

Tier 2:  Consumer, FIG, UK

• Consumer is the average team in the bank. Average dealflow, with some very big recent deals. It has a decently good culture (although it's a small team, with not too many juniors). Prestige is average, but good enough to get you looks from MF and UMM. Some strong exits in the past. 
• Dealflow in FIG is spectacular. Very good seniors. However, it is an absolute sweatshop and is a team heavily divided by nationalities. They work as 5 different teams almost (UK, Italy, Spain, Germany and France). It would be Tier 1 if not because it pigeon holes you and make exiting to generalist PE almost impossible.
• UK is country coverage with a lot of corporate broking. Can't really say much more about the team.

Tier 3:  FSG, TMT

• FSG is a great team, but for seniors... It is a team basically for client relationships. Has some of the strongest seniors within the bank but their real execution work is performed by industry teams, and (mostly) bu M&A. Their juniors generally just do refinancings. They are basically levfin analysts, which also have to prepare pitches for their seniors client meetings. Still, it you go up the ranks, you will get a good amount of interaction with the buyside, which is always cool.
• TMT just doesn't have the dealflow. The bank has been trying to improve the team (with some good MDs coming in) but it has not been very successful. A&A experience is generally chill, which I guess has its pluses and minuses. It isn't a very demanded group by interns and bonuses are known to not be the best in this group.

Tier 4: REGL

• Poor dealflow in EMEA. People are very nice and culture is good. But they simply don't have the dealflow you would expect. BofA is probably the number 1 or 2 bank for REGL in NY, but in LDN it is much weaker.

BAML is not a Top 2 in Europe Healthcare. Certainly Top 5. 

But thinking that BAML is ahead of like a Jefferies in terms of healthcare flow, exits, brand is absurd.

Congrats on M&A mate