Between these four banks, which ones have the best culture/experience and exit opportunities? I’m assuming they’re relatively on a similar playing field but would appreciate any input
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lazard and evercore both solid options and get significantly more dealflow than pwp/ghl. pros of lazard are being able to work on big deals for retainer companies like google/ibm, but have heard the work is similar to consulting. Evercore has great dealflow and culture i’ve heard, and more typical banking experience. both exit great and are a notch above ghl and pwp sf tech.
Heard the same thing. If you want to transition to a tech company at some point, especially Google, Lazard is the place to be. If you want to be a tech banker and exit within high finance, Evercore for sure.
I've heard great things about Evercore Menlo. Deal size tends to be a little on the smaller side (ton of $1B txns), but comp / culture / hours are really good from what I've been told. Re Lazard SF (assuming you mean tech), haven't heard much outside of one kid saying he's Google's bitch. Haven't heard much about Greenhill. PWP was on the Paypal / Honey deal - kid I met at a buyside recruiting info session said he'd been grinding since he started his first year.
Evercore Menlo wins on culture and experience. The folks I've met are super down to earth and the type of deals you'll be on will be the most classically banking. Exits are great and seems like a growing franchise.
Lazard is good as well but exits are going to be more limited than Evercore. The more consulting-like work they do with large clients is more geared toward corp dev than PE or VC. You may be on bigger deals due to the large-scale clients but the vast majority of what you'll do is one-off projects or case studies for those clients.
PWP is not bad but pales in comparison to Evercore or Lazard. Greenhill is even worse than PWP. Honestly seems like a sinking ship.
Pretty familiar with west coast IB and I believe that Lazard has the best exits as it has been around for longer and is more established than the other offices you mentioned. The name is also very strong. Personally, I'd pick them, but to each their own. Can't go wrong with any of these choices though, all will open doors.
Perspective from analyst at another sf tech group (Qatalyst/GS TMT)
Evercore and Lazard are a cut above the other two. From networking with both groups, the lifestyle, hours, and culture at both places -are phenomenal in the context of banking.
Choosing between them is going to be a factor of who you got along with better and the work you want to do.
Evercore gets solid deal flow and the transactions are pretty varied. They recently sold BlueJeans to Verizon for 500mm and do quite a bit of sell side, some buy side, and capital markets work too. They also get 1b+ transactions occasionally but I can’t remember off the top of my head. Evercore is also a slightly stronger name in finance right now and you’ll get great looks for traditional PE exits. I know someone that went to a MF in their last class but not sure if it was for buyout specifically or growth. Personally I think that while Evercore is the stronger name, SF is different than NY and I wouldn’t say they’re a better tech bank than Laz.
For Lazard, in pure deal flow, they’re a stronger tech bank. They’ve been a major player in tech for much longer and hold more established relationships. Recent transactions that come to mind are representing Visa on acquisition of Plaid in January (5.3b), Intel on acquisition of Habana Labs (2b), Google on acquisition of Fitbit (2b), and a mega deal a two years ago for IBM-Redhat (34b). Evercore has yet to land a deal even close to the size of IBM in tech. But these relationships are held through consulting like work that they have to provide to companies they work with. However, dealflow doesn’t translate to exits. The people I know in this group traditionally exit to growth equity (albeit amazing firms like CVC, TCV) and I know one in the last class that went to MF PE. Pay for the two is probably comparable with recent Bonus bump.
In short, for dealflow and work, evercore will give you more variation in buy side, sell side m&a, cap markets and transaction size, whereas Lazard is mostly large-cap tech buy side and some consulting advisory. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other, just different work. If you’re looking for traditional PE exits, then Evercore is a better name for MF placement. If you’re interested in growth equity, VC, or corpdev Lazard would probably be a better choice given their relationships and historical exits. However, growth and corpdev are still more than possible at EVR just like MF/UMM PE is more than possible at Laz. At the end of the day, choose between the work you want to do, where you want to go after the analyst stint and the people you liked.
EVR for sure. Lazard is not even close second in terms of anything: prestige/culture/pay/exit ops/deal opps. go google FT.com article abt how Lazard market share has been falling over the last 5 years while EVR is going up.
This is such a stupid comment that adds nothing to the conversation. I think many people would say that Evercore as a whole is a stronger bank in terms of deal flow or market share. The point of this post is comparing different groups where it really matters. Most people would take a BB or EB M&A offer over HL corp finance, but HL RX is a different story right? If you have nothing to post except generalizations about overall market share that add no value, then I wouldn't comment at all.
evercore is definitely awesome (at least several years ago and hopefully still is), Lazard has so much talent and gets deals done plus their office is sick. PWP is also a lean and strong brand. Greenhill....they are solid but they are no EVR/LAZ/PWP