Incoming summer analyst @ Bay Area. Wanted to know how these banks are in terms of culture, prestige, deal flow, and exit opps. From my understanding, these are the top 4 IB’s in SF right now but I might be wrong.
Really interested in eventually recruiting for HF (TMT equities) and wanted to know whether it would be difficult from either of these banks.
Appreciate it.
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All great. Q is unique but has a very rigorous recruiting process (7+ rounds of interviews). Definitely gets sucked off on this forum but it honestly lives up to the hype (in both deal/comp wise). A lot of VC exits but you can basically go wherever you want. Need to have an extremely strong interest in tech to perform well there, let alone get an offer. Again, not trying to gas up Q, but if you are 100% you want to do tech the only comparison as top of the line I can think of is GS TMT. That being said, all your other options are great and opportunities in the HF space are the best that you're going to get coming from an investment banking background on the west coast.
Thanks for the detailed answer rlly appreciate it.
Ooc what HFs exits exist in the Bay Area? I know Coatue is pretty prominent but what other oops are there?
Not totally sure but Farallon, Light Street and Route One come to mind in SF
LA no idea besides Canyon; thought there were more debt focused firms vs. equities
And then a bunch of the MM (ex. P72, Citadel etc) in SF I think
Wouldn’t consider Evercore in their echelon. A step down (along with JPM) from GS MS Q.
Are EVR exits worse than GS MS Q? Figured that aside from Q, other three would have similar exits
GS MS Q take a disproportionate amount of deal flow in tech relative to typical market shares in other industries
Agree with above. MS, Q, and GS are clear cut top three with JPM, EVR, and BofA behind them.From what I've seen, MS is especially strong in IPOs and other equity-related offerings, Q seems to always be on the top M&A deals as the sell-side advisor, and GS is very strong in both. As to who is best, honestly all three are super solid. Can go anywhere you want with any of them.
Put centerview instead of bofa now. They took all their top guys
How do each compare in terms of culture these days?
Not sure where some of the above posters are getting their data from, but the top three in US tech market share, deal volume and fees in tech are GS, MS and Evercore (I've been at two of these three banks). Yes, Qatalyst does well for its size specifically and exclusively in tech, but its volume is nowhere near that of Evercore's. Ignore these prospects or fresh grads who get their data from other random posters on this forum. I would put Qatalyst a notch below Evr/GS/MS for both brand name and volume reasons, but it is still a fantastic firm to start your career at.
If you're specifically interested in recruiting for HF, you'd be best positioned at Evercore compared to the balance sheet banks. For large-cap PE/Growth in tech, you'll be better positioned at Evercore/GS/MS, but still fine at Q as well.
What makes Evercore better suited for HF recruiting?
this is accurate
Thank you so much for the detailed response. Really appreciate it
You’re absolutely clowning if you think Qatalyst, a firm with less than 60 bankers, lags behind Evercore tech in exits just because they do less “volume” than EVR as a firm. Qatalyst’s average transaction size is ~5-10bn and their revenue per head is multiples that of Evercore tech.
The argument he is making is essentially that Evercore is higher in the league tables (more volume) than Qatalyst, and therefore has better exits. By that logic, UBS and DB blow Q out of the water. Hilariously bad take
Right. What large deals has Evercore been on in tech in recent years? Associate 1 in IB-M&A definitely worked at Evercore Tech.
Q is amazing in Tech M&A. Very clear cut and step above their competitors in tech. Even in our group we have good respect for them and loses a number of bake-offs to them. Q is obviously going to have far higher IB retention because of comp and self-selection reasons. Top three by deal volume and fees for Tech M&A are GS, MS, and JPM. With GS taking lead and MS and JPM alternating depending on years - that is the data no matter how you cut it. Q will not show up on a top 3 league table but our clients know they are insanely good. The world doesn't run on deal volume credits. Also need to consider the fact that Q only takes sell-side mandates...
How do the culture of these groups compare nowadays?
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Just to add to that. And purely in my opinion:
Evercore is great at developing junior bankers through the analyst and associate levels.
Q not so much. They are great bankers and do strong deals because of who the leadership is and who they've hired; but are not necessarily great at developing world class bankers; if that makes sense.
Thanks for the insight! Curious as to why you say Qatalyst doesn’t develop good junior talent, as I thought that they encouraged staying on as long-term bankers (and thus would prioritize developing internal talent)?
Seeing some curiously bad takes - Qatalyst's head of consumer banking, head of Fintech banking and head of software banking (all of whom bring in some of the biggest deals, i.e Figma, Zendesk, Citrix, Wolt, Afterpay) were all former associates at the firm and developed in-house.
Can anyone confirm whether this is actually true? Did a quick Linkedin search and saw little to no investment professionals at these firms do their banking analyst stint at Evercore's Menlo office specifically.
Confirmed, last year’s exits included Thoma Bravo Growth, GA, TPG Growth, and Warburg
In SF for tech IMO
Q > GS = MS = JPM Tech M&A = EVR MP >> JPM Tech Coverage = BofA = CVP (in context for Tech only) > everyone else
They are all great groups tbh. Evercore tends to capture all the MF PE hardos, where as the bulges (GS/MS/JPM) you get much broader diversity for exit interests. You will get the interviews you want from all these groups. In sub-vertical breakdown, GS dominates software, MS is very good on internet names, and JPM is lead in Semis. Q works on tons of great megacap deals in all tech verticals other than semis (occasional deals though).
I always thought most of the MF PE types were at MS. Also, I strongly disagree with your assessment that Q is definitively the best SF bank/group.
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