I haven’t really looked into Stifel in London. I’m curious to know your thoughts on the firm, the strongest teams / main focus area, performance these days, comps (above / below / comparable to the street), and of course exits
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There's a few threads on Stifel London if you scour through WSO, but to answer your question..
1) Culture / hours: relatively good, most people are nice and not many d*ckheads like other banks, typical IB hours but on average a lot better than the BB/EBs; it also depends on the team; flat structure so exposure to seniors is better than almost every other IB
2) Career development: you'll receive a lot more responsibility than other banks especially the BBs; the graduate analyst programme is longer than usual so progression to associate will take longer as Stifel have a 3.5 year analyst programme instead of the normal 2 years BB/EBs have in London; also career development depends on the team as some teams have better deal flow than others, some teams focus on ECM and others focus on M&A so this will impact skill set learned and exit ops; also worth noting Stifel do a lot of corporate broking so best to familiarise yourself with that.
3) Reputation: depends on each team, Investment Funds and Real Estate is pretty strong & ECM are very strong (mainly competes with JPM, Jefferies etc), KBW (FIG) is also good they did the $800m tilney/S&w transaction, Tech M&A is decent, don't know much about them (they acquired Mooreland to bolster their team), industrials M&A (forest products, paper & packaging) is also good, capital solutions team I'm unsure of (sounds like DCM or LevFin to me - connected w/ an analyst who works in this team), healthcare team seems to be growing, I think it's relatively new
4) Lateralling: most don't leave because of the good culture but lateralling to other IBs is very possible and easy to do, exit opportunities depend on which team you’re in but if you’re in one of the good teams mentioned above you could probably exit to the BB/EB/MM players, unsure about PE fund exits but I'd assume it's LMM.
Source: spoke to various people during networking (juniors & seniors) + interviewed with the industrials team for an OC in Jan 2023 (got rejected because my German sucked lmao)
Place is in disarray. KBW was probably the strongest team but few key people left and is now more of a shitshow. Have never seen them in any M&A advisory roles in EMEA. They might do lots of ECM bookrunning but that should be it. Comp below street, exit to LMM PE only or MM banks at best
Strange place, avoid, KBW team was strong, had some mandates here and there but left not so long ago
Esp in this market, I'd take an offer if you have one. Otherwise, go to any other MM firm, Stifel is not really an M&A volume place from my understanding vs other MM players.
Echo the comment above regarding teams. Tech is good for M&A, Industrials is good but you won't get in without knowing an EU language.
Any info on their equity research teams?
AC invites came out yesterday for Stifel London research grad, AC is next week
Do you know if the IBD grad process has started yet, i.e. first rounds onwards?
Is the AC also the first round video interview?
Anyone who has Stifel research AC next week let me know. I think we are the only AC!
I got a first round invite 3 hours ago
I got a first-round interview for research as well (for the summer internship)
Does anyone know anything about the recruitment process in London?
interested as well
When do bonuses get paid out?
Early march
BUMP
bump
Comp: Below street
Culture: meh, not great but not bad. Obviously team dependent but fairly old-school, plenty of public-school MDs and ex-Army servicemen
Best teams: Tech (Sweaty), paper & packaging and FIG (KBW)
Hours: Tech is the only team with strong M&A deal flow so they get sweated. Other teams fairly chill and reasonable banking hours
Unlike other MM competitors much less M&A work, way more focus on ECM bookrunning
Exits: To better mid-market banks and that's about it
Bear in mind Stifel/KBW isn't a sponsor sell-side volume shop like a Lincoln/HL etc. Operating at the LMM-MM means that if you're going to do anything, likely 60-80% of M&A will be a cookie-cutter approach to selling to PE. Stifel has a whole ER and S&T branch too, meaning it isn't as such a true boutique. Much more focus on public markets and corporate broking, but ECM has been dead since 2021 and too late to enter the sponsor sell-side approach which is dominated by other MM shops with much better PE relationships.
Any insight into the Tech Teams? How would you choose between stifel technology vs gp bullhound
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