Citi M&A vs. GS/MS/JPM

Citigroup is coming stronger and better after several years of mediocre performance (08-11). In announced Global M&A deals is 3rd as of October 2014, FICC S&T 2nd after JPM, ECM US 1st, FX S&T 1st beating DB so far this year. If you have a Bloomberg terminal in your school you can check the rankings out. Only problem is their building is pretty old :s hahaah http://cdn1.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Regional-MA.jpg

Good Luck

I'd say pretty much all coverage groups at GS are better, they don't really have any weak ones. That's an incredible internship for a sophomore, so you're definitely in a good position to leverage that.

I'd echo taquito. You can see for yourself: http://fn.dealogic.com/fn/MARank.htm.

Citi M&A has incredible momentum, and I'd take it over most of the bottom tier coverage groups at GS/MS/JPM. This year, it's been second to only MS M&A, and GS doesn't have a dedicated M&A execution group.

That being said, I think the following groups might be traditionally stronger: GS TMT/FIG/CRGH, MS M&A, Sponsors, Media&Comm, JPM M&A, Sponsors

Citi is killing it this year. But again, past performance is not indicative of future deals.

Since when has ytd league table rankings been the way to pick a job?

I would go with Citi M & A over any coverage group at GS barring TMT/FIG/CRGH. M & A is also one if not the top group at Citi so seems like a no brainer to me to go with Citi M & A.

If your goal is the buyside (probably a pretty safe assumption), I'd take pretty much any GS coverage group over Citi M&A and a decent amount of MS/JPM groups over Citi M&A as well. Sure Citi has killed it in the league tables but that's almost entirely irrelevant in the context of buyside recruiting.

I'm at one of these banks so I'll weigh in. I always like to caution you kiddos on here - a lot of posts like this are a matter of personal opinion and are by no means definitive. Now that that caveat is out of the way, groups I would take at GS/MS/JPM over Citi M&A:

GS: All except NatRes (Others will disagree with me here, this one is more personal preference), Real Estate, SSG MS: M&A, Sponsors, Media & Comm., Power/Utilities, Tech (Menlo) JPM: M&A, Sponsors, LevFin, Healthcare, FIG, TMT

@"thatsWACC" I know this is unrelated to the question you asked, but I am a sophomore and very interested in Citi. Would you mind sharing how you attained an SA spot as a sophomore?

I would appreciate it, thanks.

Look at top PE firms and you can actually see the Inv. professional backgrounds. Yes a lot of them come from GS, MS but there are still a lot of people from Citi, CS etc etc etc.... Trust me if you will be working 90 hours a week on average make sure you like the people - there is nothing worse than being stuck and working with an asshole that changes his mind every 10 minutes.

One more comment, I disagree with the guy who said the rankings are not important. Working on live deals is where you get to learn the most. Creating pitch books that nobody looks at, wont give you the same exposure and learning experience as a live deal. Whats the point of going to a bank that has great reputation but you are not getting any live deals..... Its all about exposure.

When you are working on live deals you will be able to work with professionals from other banks, vp's, md's from other groups at your bank... I know several analysts who got their HF/PE positions by knowing a vp or md they worked with, travelled, assisted on a live deal. Many of these MD's go to these large PE/HF/BB and usually bring people they trust with them..

just my opinion....

How did this thread become about MS M&A? Take any group at GS/JPM/MS over Citi. Bank name trumps group 100% of the time.

I will go with GS/JPM/MS over Citi but the most relevant things in my opinion are the culture and the people. If you fit well and people like you, you will have a better experience, like the job and perform better. If you perform well, senior people will try to have you on their live deal and this will give you higher exposure and higher ranking. Higher ranking and exposure will give you more flexibility both in the firm and outside the firm. If you end up working with people you don't like it gets very difficult to suck it up fore more than 2 years and you will not be able to deliver.

People are way too focused on deal experience here. Once you get out of college you realize that buyside recruiting starts 6 months after you start at your desk (so most likely before you announce a deal no matter what firm you are in) and headhunters basically use prestige of name and school to decide who gets interviews. GS will no deal experience trumps Citi M&A with several closed deals if your end goal is to get a good PE or HF job

I was under the impression that GS doesn't even have product groups anyways, and that it's all handled by coverage groups.

Just to chime in, from a recruiting perspective, GS is still usually preferred over non M&A MS. Citi M&A has amazing placement (TPG and Oaktree, etc.)

However, I'd take most GS groups over Citi M&A. Citi M&A over non M&A MS. Citi M&A over non M&A MS JPM.

Also to speak generally, most firms still prefer MS over JPM. The closer lumping is more like GS/MS but that's just my opinion from what I've seen.

My opinion.

Would accept almost any group from either GS/MS over Citi M&A. Not a bash -- great experience at Citi. But for recruiting brand name trumps deal experience -- I realize that doesn't make sense and is the wrong way to run things, but it is the reality.