I’ve heard mixed reviews about the culture at BofA FIG, especially after some recent controversies. Some analyst friends have strongly advised against accepting offers there, citing concerns about the environment and overall experience. I’m wondering if it would be better to leverage an offer from BofA FIG to explore opportunities at other BB banks instead.
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Go get another offer and worry about it later. Also, how many analysts do they take? They may already know you’re looking…
That might be true but Is the challenging environment at BofA FIG consistent across all levels, or is it particularly tough for analysts? I know some MBA grads who are currently debating whether they should accept a role there or not.
Isn’t that literally the group that the associate died working for
don't think people are aware, although internally it sounds like a group to avoid
They fully haze their interns. Not my personal experience, just what I have seen by people I know in the group.
i would accept the offer and, if you have reservations, leverage it to a different platform if you can do so gracefully. what are people saying in your coffee chats? i want to see if it aligns with what i was told.
i recently spoke with someone who left the banks team. on the pros side, if you accept the offer you will almost def work on multi-billion dollar transactions if you stay for a two-year analyst contract. there are not many teams on wall street where you can say that and fewer still where you can say that and the team runs the M&A process, versus being in a strong group like JPM healthcare but the M&A team does all the modeling. the associate i spoke with stands out from a technical M&A process standpoint due to his experience so joining this team would be a way to quickly build a strong resume + good experience. on the cons, you will work a lot. 90+ hour week not outside the norm on billion dollar plus transactions and thats true for associates as well as analysts as we tragically know. not sure it makes sense to work EB hours for a BB paycheque
everyone on this forum says they work like that, but there are plenty of BB groups where 60-80 hours is norm (look for sponsors groups).there is no FIG group on wall street where you can consistently close large buysides and not be overworked
When you go to a major city after a terrorist attack it tends to have a lot of police on the streets. BofA FIG might be one of the better places to be right now after they killed that dude
BofA's overall issue is simply having too many useless headcount that pulls back high performers in terms of bonus and overall morale. In FIG it's a bit different - there has been a huge loss of junior headcount across almost all subverticals in the last year or so that pretty much every single junior is working their ass off to keep up with staffings. Ratio of MDs to A&A is so ridiculously high in FIG across all the groups at BofA that as a junior you'll be doing multiple live deals concurrently (which is good if you're a greedy hardo) but it'll destroy your social life.
This is spot on. FIG is a bit different than most of the other groups at BofA that they actually lost a lot of bodies over the past year due to the death. So the juniors are struggling to keep up with the staffings… this is exacerbated by the fact that FIG (and every other group at BofA) is very top heavy and the ratio of MDs to VP/ASO/AN is extremely high. BofA operates as a socialist bank so last year, everyone (even the top performing or lean groups) got paid poorly in order to subsidize the groups they over-hired in 2021. Other banks fired some juniors in these groups to adjust headcount, but BofA refuses to fire.
Long way of saying… Most of the issues with BofA FIG actually apply to all of BofA. Bad hours for good performers, no culling, bad bonuses for everyone. There are a lot of useless bodies collecting checks, particularly at the MD level where people get paid $500k to bring in no deals for multiple years. The bank is somehow more lenient with MDs who lose bake-off after bake-off and routinely fumble the execution work they do have vs an analyst or associate making a footnote typo. They MDs did a good job creating a narrative where they are scapegoating the juniors for their failures.
From a FIG specific standpoint, I don’t work in that group but I do know it historically has been one of the worse groups in terms of culture, but people have a much closer eye on it after the death.
Let me add in my perspective as someone who quit BofA last year in London (not FIG).
The team is for sure busy and known to have the longest hours and an intense culture that comes with it. But don’t expect this to be so much better in another team, banking is nearly always going to be long hours and particularly so in a strong team.
They do have good deal flow and the team has good exits, last year for example Hg and TPG.
And of course they love to tell you that Orcel used to run their team.
I personally think that the team has not changed much.
Truth is that not everyone work the same hours in FIG cause it’s such a big group with different verticals. Some work 100+ hours (banks) while others work 50-60 hours (AM). And even within those verticals, good associates tend to work longer hours due to staffing on live transactions vs the bad associates who just work on pitch books.
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