BMO IBD future outlook
I’ve seen some threads about BMO was looking to get more insight on the firm’s outlook. Do you guys think it will grow enough to compete with the BBs? They do have a big balance sheet, a commercial bank presence, have expanded office space (new building Chi by summer 2021), hired MDs from other BBs, gain market share once DB becomes irrelevant. If anyone has any insight on dealflow, exits, pay and culture would also like to hear more about that.
BMO culture is legendarily bad - there's an entire thread dedicated to this, complete with ex-BMO senior coming in and agreeing it's toxic.
Former BMO alum here. BMO has been doing very poorly and losing meaningful US IBD market share since at least 2017. At this point I think the bank is probably in the midst of reevaluating their strategic focus for the franchise and would not be surprised if they started de-prioritizing US IBD. I would say if someone is starting his / her career in a coverage group and has literally any other MM IBD offers on the table, go with those. The culture, at least when I was there, also left much to be desired..