I have been noticing that Qatalyst has incredibly lost important sell sides with regards to Tech M&A. Celestial AI/ Marvell, Uber/ Delivery Hero, Salesforce/Informatica. A few years ago they were always exclusive advisor. Now they seem to not win every bake off like they used to. What happened?
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bump... interesting point...
I dont think you realize how many deals Qatalyst turns down. They consistently beat out GS and MS on almost everything (not everything to be clear) they want to be sellside for and turn down a ton of stuff that isn't big or interesting enough.
There is not a single banker from qatalyst who laterals to another bank at any level (unless pushed out), but people from goldman, ms, and others lateral to qatalyst because its better hours, better pay, better culture, better deals, and cooler exits (if you're into tech). Why do you think Goldman's head of activism and their best software/semis bankers left for Q
On the flip side, they only do m&a and right now the three most transformative deals of 26 are spacex, anthropic, and openai so despite Frank Quattrone doing Amazon and Apple's ipos, his firm is going to miss out even if the actual work doing an IPO is boring
Been a sinking ship ever since they rejected my SA application
yeah they lost a good one
Because despite the bullshit repeated tirelessly by high school students on this forum, the so called "elite" boutiques are in 90% of the case not even remotely comparable to BB. They don't have the name, platform, background, knowledge and talent pipeline and they just can't sustain to maintain their top rankings over an extensive period of time (cf PJT, PWP, now Q, to another extent even if a bit different Lazard).
Congrats on BofA lil bro
I'm talking about GS/JP/MS there.
And even for BofA/Citi my point still stands.
Hope this helps.
Is this actually true? Genuinely asking. Are top BBs better than the top EBs?
bruh
This has been my impression as I moved from being a student -> workforce. Everyone over 30 glazes GS/MS/JPM but may or may not know what Moelis is.
the EB are temporary outliers that eventually return to the mean. 10 years ago the set of EB's was totally different and 10 years from now it will be different too. BB will always hold position in the longterm.
EB's were probably totally different because they get acquired/merge i assume. Plus you don't see EB's going under like banks such as Lehman. Lehman used to be the top bank before it collapsed
When compensation is the only thing you’re known for, you’re gonna have problems
They lack financing capabilities. Right now, companies are turning to public markets to access capital that the private markets cannot provide. SpaceX's recent IPO and subsequent debt issuance highlight this well. As a result, companies are relying more on BB banks, more broadly, given their greater financing capabilities. It's also worth mentioning that lots of EBs do particularly well because of rainmakers that stay with the firm for some time. But once those rainmakers retire, dealflow slows quite a bit.
You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. They basically only do sell side and if you’re sell side advising you don’t need a balance sheet. Take an ounce of effort before you type a post.
No - YOU don’t know what you’re talking about.
Are you even in banking? On another post, you are inquiring about analyst applications/interview processes for DB’s internship program.
On the sell side, having a balance sheet is a key factor in winning advisory mandates, which often involve staple financing and/or other capital market support.
Before you shoot ignorant comments, spend an ounce of effort getting into a major BB/EB first.
Good luck with your DB resume drop.
Get mogged lil bro. Listen more and talk less
I laughed when I read this comment. You’re so confident but so incorrect. People like you are what makes this industry insufferable.
Is this a troll post? The three deals you mentioned are only a couple of the dozens of other multi billion tech deals that happened this year. Some of the actual largest deals that have happened in recent months (Roku - $25 billion, Silicon Labs - $8 billion, Synaptics - $7 billion) have all been Qatalyst.
The vibe of this thread and some comments seem almost personal. Sorry to hear they didn’t hire you
the tone of this post is off but Q has defnitely lost out on some big name mandates in recent years (to GS TMT / MS Menlo) - Salesforce / Informatica, IBM / Red Hat, EA / Silver Lake & PIF, Wiz / Google, Uber / Delivery Hero and some others.
but i dont get the premise, if they did do all those deals then what is gs tmt and ms menlo gonna do, theres no world where those banks dont get elite sell sides too, so no shit by logic Q will lose some mandates??? u want them to do everything?
They just did Anyscale sell side and you have to realize they’re limited by headcount. They are still the go to bank retard.
The firm is small enough where they can feast off of a few wins per year given the revenue per headcount. They’re not going to be on every deal
Maybe the rainmakers want to chill for a bit after making so much money
Not as strong as they used to be but still doing great
Definitely picking UBS TMT over Q after this.
Average Q analyst is smarter and better connected than the average UBS TMT MD
I’m not saying they are not getting deal flow in anyway (although most deal flow sits at a few billion per deal). I’m just saying they not getting every landmark M&a deal like they were in 2020-2023. Lost big mandates to GS and MS.
That's because of how many landmark tech m&a deals there are now compared to back then. Q is a small firm (by headcount) and doesn't have the capacity to work on all of them, and companies know that
How do you know they lost them vs. turning them down due to lack of capacity on their part?
Bump
Part of their team left to found Axom Partners. Wonder if that has anything to do with it.
It’s an interesting observation, but I’d be cautious about reading too much into a handful of high-profile deals. Advisory mandates can depend on relationships, sector expertise, pricing, and the specific needs of the client.
They are doing fine but whoever is under the illusion that they win every big-ticket tech M&A is retarded. They are losing on a number of prominent mandates to GS TMT or MS Menlo
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