39 Comments
 

The firms you named are solid and all of them will give you a great experience. Some might be stronger, some weaker: Their respective ranking varies across offices as deal flow etc. depends on certain rainmakers!

Just keep in mind that you've named T2 & T3 MMs. Obviously firms like Houlihan Lokey, Rothschild, Jefferies etc. rank "better" in the MM space...

 

Think this may be more accurate

T1a: Jef, HL
T1b: WB, Baird, HW

T2: Piper, Solomon Partners, RJ, Lincoln, Oppenheimer, Laz mm

T3: TD Cowen, Stifel, Truist, BMO, Wells

T4: Key, Cantor, DC Advisory, BGL, Stout, Stephens

 

Solomon Partners is MM? I was corrected during an interview with them when I said that they were MM (as part of my "Why Solomon" answer) that they were not MM.

Is Wells Fargo MM? I thought they were closer to a BB... 

Also Lincoln is in that tier? Are their exits on par with the rest in the same tier? I know they do a crazy number of deals (but smaller ones)...

(idk anything I haven't even done my internship yet, just curious so thanks for the insight). 

 

1: Yes, Solomon is a MM because they do almost all MM deals. I think they like to market that they're an EB because they hire mostly targets and do a few 1B+ deals in C&R. Other MMs on the list do many 1B+ deals a year too (e.g., WB, Piper, RJ, etc).

2. Wells isn't an MM, they're more of a large in between bank. As of right now, the best exits outside of the REGAL group seem to be to MM PE, and on a per capita basis they tend to place less into MM PE than many of the tier 1s and 2s on the list. People on here keep hyping up their new hires and investments into IB, so perhaps that will change in the next 5 years we'll see. 

3. Not too sure about Lincoln and their exits because you're right that they do mostly LMM deals. I've heard that career progression is great though if you want to be a career banker. I'd imagine exits into PE aren't the best since analysts don't really get any true modeling work. 

 

Wild that Lincoln and Piper are in the same tier…other than that seems pretty accurate

 

how is Oppenheimer better than Stifel? I am applying to both banks for SA 2025 so just curious. These rankings are helpful!

 

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