Hi all - currently an AN2 at a top BB M&A group. I have no interest in buy-side and am planning on going A2A, and am interested in perhaps becoming a career banker down the line. Obviously CVP is a great firm by all means, but would love to hear more first-hand accounts of how life at CVP is past the analyst years.
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I'll provide a bit more of a grounded, or since CVP is so overhyped by prospects on this forum, perhaps contrarian view.
Pros: CVP's comp is high by even EB standards. The deal experience here is tremendous - you get very hands-on with every deal and really get to learn the intricacies of doing deals. "Strategic advisory" for long-time clients gives you a slightly better variety of work experience and a break from just traditional M&A execution. You're treated as an adult here - as long as your bring your A game every day the seniors are fine with how you get your work done. Lots of seniors actually care about mentorship. CVP has imo the best junior intellectual firepower on the street - whatever CVP does with its junior recruiting (personally lateraled), it works.
Cons: While compensation is still high, CVP's distance with the rest of the street gets smaller every year and the compensation is no longer "sky high" like it used to be. The firm's struggled with scaling while still maintaining its business model - CVP's traditionally differentiated itself to clients by priding itself on its very personalized execution for every deal, and the firm sells itself on offering "less-commoditized" advice. That's worked very well when the firm has traditionally done mostly large-cap deals, but as the firm's grown larger and moved down-market as new senior promotes chase smaller deals, that model doesn't hold up as well and all the customized work starts to break down. Everyone's always expected to bring their A game, which is much harder than it sounds - seniors demand 110% all the time and as a result pressure and hours are always high. Also accounts-based staffing sucks - great if your 2-3 accounts are slow, but if your 2-3 accounts are all on fire you get worked hard.
Other things: CVP's culture is...interesting, almost cult-like in how you meet those McKinsey consultants that actually believe the firm's whole PR about being the decision-makers in the most transformational projects making the world a better place (observing as a lateral). It's fascinating - the firm ingrains its culture within its prospects on day 1 (and WSO idolizing CVP probably doesn't help), and the firm's focus on retaining talent and promoting from within means that that culture is pretty deeply ingrained across the ranks. A side thing is that the people at CVP definitely have a better-than-thou ego, but in a way where they don't flex it loudly.
Overall, CVP is a great firm, but it's absolutely not leaps and bounds above every other EB and BB as WSO would make it seem like. The firm has its own problems and quirks, and at the end of the day is still IB. If you hold CVP on a pedestal compared to other "small" EBs like PJT or PWP you'll only be disappointed.
Thanks for such a detailed perspective. Do you have any views on how PWP/PJT are for career banking?
Both are great firms and my friends over at those two places seem to enjoy their experiences - I'd say that PWP and PJT's advisory practices are probably the most comparable peers to us in terms of firm strategy, experience, and culture.
Can I pm about lateral?
I know this is a 2-year-old post, but wanted to see if you could provide some updated insight into Associate and VP comp at CVP. It looks like the rumored $300K base for Associates wasn’t entirely accurate. Would really appreciate any details on current base salary and bonus figures for those levels.
any insight on what hours look like for analysts and associates? any concept of protected weekend days (saturday?)
What would you say is the median announced deal size in a given year given your comments above about having to shift towards smaller deals?
It hasn't changed anything. I don't think people realize how much the Pareto principle applies to deal flow at boutiques - sure, CVP's been on some very large deals the past year, but those deals are very much the production of a handful of partners and deal teams. That doesn't mean that the other partners and deal teams have been dormant. The majority of partners, especially the ever-increasing bench of newer partners and MDs, have still kept people busy on BD work for ever-smaller clients and deals, which means that overall deal experience for the vast majority of deal teams has trended downwards in terms of size.
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