Evercore Has Gone Downhill
Current 2nd Year Associate in M&A @ Evercore NY (ignore flair, messed up my settings when creating throwaway account). Was an A2A promote and have seen things go downhill gradually over the past few years.
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Mass exodus of seniors in the past 2 years has made culture go to shit. Especially exaggerated by COVID.
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Lots of turnover across 4 of our teams at the mid/senior level with tons of bankers going to BBs (which they would never have fathomed before COVID due to the politics there), CVP or exiting the industry all together.
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Large influx of laterals from mid-tier BB (Citi, Bofa, Barclays, CS) bankers in the last 18 months have shifted culture. Lots of deal peddling by these people; deal sizes have gone down and volume has gone up. In some teams, more than 50% of the team at the mid/senior level only joined recently.
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Quality of interns has gone downhill. I'm not sure if it was because of COVID/remote interviews or because class sizes have become so bloated. EVR is trying to expand, so selectivity and therefore quality of interns is no longer what it used to be .
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Exits are not as good as they used to be. Class sizes are so big now that we've essentially gotten diluted and I've noticed that analysts are no longer getting insane levels of love from HHs.
Evercore is just no longer "it" and its reputation inflates what it actually is now. Sure it's still a good place to work with comp very very high, but that's pretty much all that it has going. Few cool deals here and there but it seems like the focus is now on volume. Culture has just been horrible since COVID started... and I sincerely regret going A2A.
Hoping changes can be made moving forward.
I don't want to be cocky as I consider myself very lucky, but as an intern this summer, I had higher expectation for quality of people
Recently lateraled and feel the same way. I’ve met the sharpest people at PJT, Centerview, and Perella personally. Goldman has sharp folks too.
Perella is a joke. Can't believe you grouped that shitshow of a firm with true elite tier firms.
Trust me. I know.
Are you confusing quality with paper pedigree? No firm can scale and be super "Exclusive"; they are in the business of making money - not running some small old boys club.
Unfortunately, the two are often conflated.
Yeah heard friends also mention the same. Curious to see if they’ll right the ship over the next few years
What advice would you give to a first year just starting out here? Sadly this post is confirming some suspicions I had from my first impressions so far, I but really want to make the best of the experience. Thanks for confirming for me that A2A is out of the question now, though.
OP here:
I mean obviously start off with a positive attitude because your experience may be widely different depending on group and from mine. I'd say be careful with how you present yourself in front of the laterals. Idk why, but for some reason, these ex-bofa/citi/barclays Associates and VPs operate like they have a chip on their shoulders and that they have something to prove. Like dude, I don't care where you came from, just be a good colleague/boss and don't make things more difficult than it has to be because you're insecure about the "prestige" of your previous job lmao
Had 5 people (analyst to director) from my team at a Mid-tier BB got to Evercore in the last 1.5 years all were bottom bucket, so agree that maybe team is getting diluted a bit. Mix of personalities from nice people to bad hardos and lazy people that look good on paper. Not really the type of people you want to have join that place. Will unfortunetly be hard to fire for a couple years as most laterals at all major EB/BBs in the last year got guarenteed comp for a year or 2. The timing is unfortunete given layoffs likely coming this fall at most places.
This worries me for next summer, would you say this is just for EVR NY specifically, or does it apply to EVR Menlo as well?
Menlo is still alright culturally right now but it’s going in the same direction. Tons of mid BB exodus fluff coming in this summer with key players leaving/clearly gearing up to go. I’d say this side of the table has a good 3 years left in it, hours always been bad though so that’s not new.
Thanks for the insight, is this comment regarding Menlo Tech or HC? Will be interning there next year with plans to stay for at least 2 years FT if given return (won’t say at which of the two since groups are small), but one of the main reasons I chose them was bc of the amazing and super chill culture I experienced during all my networking/interview calls with ppl from the group (from analysts to senior MDs). Do you think it’s worth doing my 2 years there before exiting, or would you even recommend recruiting buy side FT?
How have they performed? Producing deals or too early to say?
Sounds like a failure to build internal talent and trying to grow artificially to quickly.
Did not mean to offend anyone. Deleted what I said. I just don't think the quality of junior talent that EVR recruits is there anymore.
Do you go to Wharton? PM me..
I’m also a 23 SA and I personally know a few kids who chose Moelis LA/PJT over Evercore. Don’t know where you heard that from but you gotta stop being biased and see the facts
I love how the assumption on this board is that "diversity" candidates are lower quality. Mediocre people have been coasting into prestigious shops for decades
Just speculating here but based on going to another (and assumably the same top target for Evercore) the OP of this comment is right that recruiting has gone down hill. Process was fucked and entirely based on connections. The rest of it is bullshit though lol
exactly, as if there is no possibility that you are smart and qualified because you aren’t white or a man ..
....
Pretty much matches what I’ve heard. Feeling is that my friends there have felt this away for a while but this is the first time this has been spoken out loud
Personally chose another EB over going through with Evercore because of pretty much everything you’ve said. I’m lucky enough to go to a target that usually sends a few kids every year to NYC/Menlo but all of my contacts expressed the same sentiments you’ve said/we’re straight up honest with me.
It’s so hard to shit on Evercore on this forum but people need to seriously open up their eyes. Its not as good as it used to be anymore and is going downhill
Don’t think this can be said for Menlo HC specifically though, heard the group there is doing well and has a great culture from junior to senior levels
Sorry meant tech^ idk anyone personally from Menlo HC
FWIW, feels like it from the client perspective as well.
It becomes a vicious cycle of EVR sacrificing reputation, leading to poor hires, leading to less value-add for clients, leading to me paying less, leading to less money for good hires...
Competitors in HC such as Leerink, Cowen, JEF are pulling away from a quality perspective, and then layering in balance sheet leverage via M&A to be more full-service.
Any sustained market downturn will not be kind to EVR...
Curious to hear how excactly HFs engage the services of EBs?
Not sure about that poster specifically but distressed funds will a lot given EVR’s presence in the space. Restructuring team specifically but then there are also usually a couple industry guys working alongside restructuring.
Pretty disappointed to hear this as '23 SA, especially after really connecting with only EVR bankers during recruiting, but I've been seeing comments about this occasionally on WSO. I'm pretty dead set on MF PE so I guess I'll just start FT recruiting next year, thanks for the post
Can u pm me
For what it’s worth, even their energy team has lost some steam over the past couple of years - some upper-level departures coupled with a lack of balance sheet seems to be hurting them. Still the sweatshop it was before, just with fewer deals and more pitches going around.
The Houston team has fared particularly bad. It's a shell of what is was in its heyday.
Exactly, the group also seems very bloated so I wonder if it'll see layoffs with the larger bank, even if the strong energy environment persists.
Disagree here on the energy group. They had a down year in 2021 (after an all time record year in 2020) but things are picking up this year after a slow start.
I used to work for a C-Suite exec of a large cap independent oil company, and he says the Evercore midstream senior team is the best on the street hands down. Best bankers he’s ever worked with directly. The energy group leadership is still there, still very intact despite one key senior guy on the upstream team sunsetting into an advisory role.
So in my view, and from what I hear from people over there, the Houston office culture is still in pretty damn good shape, thanks mostly to a lot of really good associates and analysts I know that work hard, have a good attitude, and are fun people to be around.
Heard the analysts are no good also, making it tough on at least mid-level.
What makes the analyst worse nowadays? Work ethic or ability?
I just know about work ethic.
I guess work life balance pendulum has swung too far and analysts think they can get away with anything (hard to track down, dont want to work, etc.)
I am training to be a surgeon.
Does that make you jealous?
Thats what they get for changing their logo every 2 days
Can say the same thing about PJT M&A - minus the point about senior exodus. PJT has just been hiring more geriatric seniors who sit on their ass and do nothing while getting paid a nice $10mil, all while analysts get cranked by the week's new lateral Director from CS / BofA trying to make a name for themself by leading the efforts to pitch a $75mm niche Utilities or Insurance capital raise. Probably explains why all but 1 of our Class of 2019 Associates left the firm before being up for VP promote...
Much like EVR RX, PJT RSSG has done a great job of keeping a small, quality team with top-tier deal reps. On the M&A side, though, it just seems to be a bloodbath for shitty deals and "client relationship building" at the expense of quality.
Have to push back on this a bit:
1. What do you expect those guys to do? Sit on their ass and do nothing? Company’s are focusing on their own operational issues and shoring up balance sheets. They’re new and have to demonstrate an ability to produce. Plus the fact that in the coming downturn/ layoffs they’ll be the first to go if they don’t. Understand that these are not the transactions you want to be working on but fees are fees.
2. What OP is describing at EVR in terms of a volume push has not been seen at PJT. YTD EVR has done $70bn in US M&A on 90 deals = $770mm avg. deal size. Everyone has to move down market in a downturn, however PJT and CVP have avg. deal sizes of 1.5bn and 2bn so far this year
3. Peope leave banking. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have the quasi-industrial campus recruiting mechanism. Did they leave to go do banking elsewhere? If so, yes likely a sign of deteriorating culture. If not, then clearly they just wanted out of IB.
Sorry, but that was NEVER the mantra for a top firm like evercore. That's a jefferies mindset.
I've always been curious about EBs' obsession with hiring super-senior dealmakers and whether it actually pays off for them. On the one hand these people are highly experienced, well-connected, and know how to source deals. On the other, they are already financially comfortable and have little incentive to outperform - they have probably reached the pinnacles of their careers and are just looking to collect a pay check while keeping one foot in retirement. Posts like this make me wonder whether Goldman's approach of promoting young, hungry VPs/EDs into senior dealmaker positions is more effective than dropping $10m p.a. on a senior banker who is past his prime.
OP, its not just Evercore that is going downhill, INVESTMENT BANKING is going downhill.
I'm at a top BB. We had a really horrible recruiting class this year. Feedback from teams was we were not excited about really any of the candidates this year but it was all we had so we had to give offers.
1. Our HR teams have stopped letting us recruit specifically from top targets and have forced us to meddle with random state schools across the USA which has diluted quality. Specific guidance was that we are not allowed all top ivies, we need "diversity" in the sense of school quality. Most importantly however, all the negative press of banking during COVID really nuked the desire for college students to join the industry leaving only the hardest of the hardos to recruit, or mediocre "strivers" who are willing to work 100hr weeks since their only other options are something crappy like Northwestern Mutual or big4 audit. Everyone else is going tech/consulting/straight to buyside.
2. All the top tier amazing/friendly people left the firm during COVID to the buyside, corporate roles, or they retired, started small businesses, went back to school etc. Covid was a time of deep introspection for the industry and anyone who is well adjusted, confident, not neurotic, doesn't have anxiety issues, and doesn't need to prove something decided banking was really not a great thing to be a part of. The people who remained after the 2020-21 exodus are all neurotic, anxious, depressed, and afraid of change.
3. Since so many people left, we had to lateral in people not only from bad quality IB firms, but people completely outside IB (transaction services, corp dev etc). Whole industry had to do this, not just my firm. Quality dropped.
In less than a decade I wouldn't be surpised if IB is looked at by college students like kids viewed big4 at my school when I was in college.
This sounds like 100% GS based on what I've heard from both junior and senior alum there. Heard HR pushed hard to screw up the recruiting process this year.
Honestly could be any of the top BBs. Networked heavily with all 3 from a top target and didn’t get superday with JPM (hirevue->super) or MS (might be a first round in between). The worst part is I didn’t even get a fucking hirevue from GS, and that sentiment was shared with a bunch of other non-diverse guys I studied technicals with.
Noticed this as a summer last year at a top gs group and half the people were from random bumfuck liberal arts colleges. I wouldn’t care if their insecurity didn’t ooze out in every interaction they had or snide joke about me going to a top HYPSM. Made it hard to want to stick around
Sounds like you're a little insecure that people from "random bumfuck" liberal arts colleges landed the same job as you. You do realize your daddy DJ D-Sol also went to aforementioned bumfuck college?
Sounds like my BB (not GS). Classes have largely gotten worse the last 3 years are so (both analysts and associates). Still some truely great juniors at the top of their class but it falls off quickly and the bottom 1/3 are almost useless. It definetly strains the mid-tier bankers when you have to spend a signifcant amount of time doing junior banker tasks. I'm always happy to help out in an emergency or when my teams are getting crushed but now sometimes they are just completely incompetent to the point where they barely get staffed since they have no reliability. Being reliability, in my opinion, is the only skill that absolutely everyone must have. Lots of other important ones but they are largely moot if the person is not reliable.
Seeing that capital markets companies industrywide have seen a change in recruiting, I'm curious what you think the next big fancy finance job will be. Is there something that will fill the "prestige" void that will be left open, or will both the "hardos" and "strivers" alike seek a completely different field (medicine, law, tech, consulting, etc.)?
where do the top kids go now, in your opinion? Straight to the buyside?
As long as IB continues to pay 20 year olds $150-200K+ (or whatever that ends up being inflation adjusted) right out of college , then it will never be viewed as Big4.
Regardless you make some great points that people all across different banks are noticing right now. The pipeline of talent coming into banks is diminishing in quality every year and the traditionally smart & high quality workers who used to enter the job are going into alternative careers like tech. That's been happening for a number of years now but the effects are really starting to show recently. Part of the issue is HR diversity BS, but there is a more fundamental issue of banks just not being a place where smart + hungry + motivated people want to spend their time these days. While the pay is attractive to most things on a relative basis, it's not anywhere close to what it was during the heyday a couple decades ago and frankly is not really worth all of the negatives that come with working in a constrained bank environment and all of the low IQ types around.
The quality of laterals coming in during the COVID period has been horrible and everyone has noticed. Every firm had to reach much lower in quality because of the high turnover and need for bodies, and the results are pretty much as expected. Now that things have cooled down, expect a lot of these people to get pushed out either indirectly (low bonus) or directly (losing their jobs unfortunately)
What will end up happening in the long run? Absent some major structural shift like banks paying people a bigger % of the deal fees and higher comp like the 'old days' , you are just going to progressively see lower and lower quality people enter the job over time. Quality of advice will go down, dumber / less insightful types running around, more people who don't know what they are doing, etc. IB isn't some super essential job , so it's not like there will be some major societal implications to this
Partially disagree with this take. For the tech path, sure you will bleed some talent there, but multiple kids in my analyst class turned down tech offers to do IB because it's client facing and most FAANG SWE's are fixing/debugging prebuilt code, not writing code for the next unicorn startup. Anecdotally, that is what I have experienced, and think it holds true for different personalities that are content never interacting with people vs people who want to be in a client facing role in some capacity
For banking not being an essential job, I'd also disagree. No, I'm not saying we're saints doing God's work or brain surgeons, but a large part of economic growth and overall quality of living can be attributed to banking/access to capital markets. No access to financing for companies = companies closing shop = economy in shitter. no potential exit opportunities for business owners = decline in creativity/motivation/creative destruction = economy in shitter. Capital markets will be inherently vital to the continued growth of global wealth and standards of living, and to say otherwise is rather naive IMO.
As a first-year analyst, how do I go about improving myself to make sure I'm either in that top bracket and/or closer to how analysts may have once been? I know the usual stuff around responsiveness, work quality, etc, but some of the comments here read like there's some sort of special sauce missing. I don't think I'm a bad analyst but I hate the idea of being perceived as worse than previous analysts.
Kind of agree with all. I don't think talent will just continue to decline though. If you go onto college campuses it's still very popular, and will continue to be one of the most pursued jobs out of school, it not the most. Just stacks up well against the other options, even with all of the issues described.
So has your bank also been pushing for volume? Him the “fees are fees” mindset was something I never expected out of evercore
OP here:
Interesting. While I agree that maybe its an industry wide issue of recruiting shittier interns/analysts, I think it's an Evercore specific issue with all the new laterals trying to hit it big with really shitty deals. It's been a NY thing, but as you can read above, lots of anxiety in the Menlo office with top players all gearing up the leave as well.
Evercore is not supposed to be a volume shop. There's been a huge culture change these past few years and it's certainly not something I've heard from my friends at Centerview.
Honestly, they don't have the issue of bringing in shitty laterals. Why? Their mid-levels are all A2A promotes due to the fact that they actually treat juniors like human beings, and occasionally, they'll bring in rainmakers from other firms (like poaching the 2 heads of JPM HC recently) with insane profit-sharing agreements to facilitate deal flow.
Evercore is really breaking down at the low to mid level, which just isn't an issue at Centerview or Goldman, where they promote hungry juniors.
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Can confirm the PCA team is currently the best place to be at EVR (top culture, highest pay at the mid-level,...)
what are hours like for PCA?
Any insight on Debt Advisory?
@OP, could you share the analyst exits of your class just to quantify your point on poorer analyst exits? It would really help quantify your argument.
i.e.:
1x to BX PE
2x to GTCR
1x. to Stone Point
1x to NFLX
Agree with OP with the exception of the dilution of exit opps. Quality and consitency of exit opps remains for above average / top performers.
Pardon my ignorance here, but why exactly is a volume shop necessarily a bad thing? I can understand that it’s probably ideal to work on the big-name and massive deals, but does transitioning to volume truly deteriorate a bank this much? I get the culture and lateral sentiment as well for Evercore and how that contributes, but I’m trying to understand the deterioration more from a deal perspective and wondering why volume shops are looked poorly upon cause isn’t a name like Evercore still a top notch resume line at the end of the day?
Transitioning to the numbers game of volume means significantly increased busy body work and trails that ultimately lead to dead ends. More boiling the ocean and makes the analyst experience that much harder to deal with 8-12 processes per head instead of 5-6. You can’t actually pay attention, dig deep, and learn when there are too many useless projects arising.
Good points. Or not necessarily useless, but just so much happening. I would think with a volume shop you are in fact on more deals, but fully agree w that deal work being less in depth as legit thinking impossible at those levels. Unless I'm wrong and just the overall level of work (pitching and deals) increases at a volume shop / sweatshop, whereas pre-transition to volume you may have been sitting around more.
Honestly unsure.
Do you believe this has to do with juniors being in a COVID-19 online environment? Altho still junior I am seeing a lot of peers not wanting to work and slacking off. Doesn't hurt me as it gives me an edge but curious to see if this is a more junior-centric issue or senior as well?
From an analyst perspective, EVR is still a great place to be if you are optimizing for comp and exits. Heard the latest class did extraordinarily well in terms of absolute placement (not per capita).
Can confirm on exits, still the best place to be for buyside exits. Seniors are very supportive and will make calls and give you time off during recruiting which cannot be said for other places like GS or CVP.
Haven't banks been hiring associates without prior experience for forever? I believe that's exactly what they do from MBA programs quite often?
what is total comp for an analyst?
200-240k all in year 1
Is this for evermore? What is the TC for a first year associate?
This thread has it all, many excuses. It's either laterals from mid-tier BBs, diversity, COVID, deal volume, state schools, non-targets, liberal arts schools, laterals from so called "bad quality IB firms", depression, fear of change, Jefferies, the EVR logo, Houston, you name it.
You people should stop pontificating and start enjoying the EVR compensation that you went there for in silence. No one is fooled by the idea that you went to what was otherwise a farmer's bank just a few years ago for its great brand, culture, smart people and great exits. We all know where the smartest people who are willing to take a pay cut go. It's rarely EVR.
The amount of self important whining in this thread is nuts. Dudes really think they're God's gift to finance because some bank pays them $200k to play with numbers in excel.
Ironically, they're probably creating this toxic culture they complain about with some of this bs they're crying about.
This guy gets it.
Word.
Being an ex-lawyer, what's happening in IB reminds me of what happened in law (and continues to get worse) maybe 20 years ago. Law school enrollments are on a prolonged downward trend - and that's a good way to measure interest in law (unfortunately, banking doesn't have any such direct measure, but one potential measure - statistics from most T15 MBA schools can tell you that the interest from top schools in traditional banking has wavered quite a bit - particularly for the T10 schools and even those recruiting tend to quit after 1.5 years, instead of the historical wait till you become a VP to quit 3.5 year mark).
Diversity is good, but also reminds you that the price for banking losing its prestige is going to be real - especially when it comes to motivating/retaining mid-level talent. Also, there's nothing stopping a lot of "non-target" students from also being equally disillusioned with banking - in fact, tech hiring is more meritocratic compared to banking hiring- and opportunities for "non-target" students in these alternate to banking careers is brighter than ever.
SHUT THE FUCKING FUCK UP WITH THIS DOWNHILL BULLSHIT
EVERCORE IS AN EXCELLENT EB AND SHITS ON EVERY BB BESIDES GS/MS
GO HAVE SEX
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