Exclusive Sales M&A

Before everyone starts shitting on the OP - I may be wrong here, but I believe the OP is referring to the sell-side M&A teams at BBs. This might be confusing to those who aren't familiar with how M&A teams are structured at a lot of the BBs. Again, if I'm understanding the OP correctly here, he is not talking about coverage teams. He is talking about the sell-side M&A team within the M&A product group.

Some BBs call this group within the M&A group Exclusive Sales M&A, while others just call it Sell-side M&A. From my knowledge/experience working in the M&A group, these teams focus exclusively on sell-side mandates for Private Equity firms. I know it is really confusing, but it is basically an M&A team that not only focuses solely on PE firms, but also on sell-sides only. Buy-side advisory for sponsors has more to do with financing, so the financial sponsors team covers that with the help of the regular M&A team.

Sell-side M&A / Exclusive Sales M&A as you can imagine is an extremely niche group that is a very small team within M&A. BB M&A groups probably have around 3-4 MDs in this group, and they don't have a separate junior team for this. They just use the regular M&A team for analysts and associates and get the help from coverage groups for making powerpoint decks (pitches, CIMs, etc). Coverage MDs also tag along accordingly to the sector the deal is in.

A lot of you may be thinking that this is super confusing and may even think that having this separate group within the M&A team is unnecessary or useless. However, this is actually a super lucrative business for advisory fees. As a M&A MD, the number one thing you care about so that you get paid well is the deal flow. Well, focusing on sponsors sell-side M&A will give you not only a significant amount of deal flow, but a consistent deal flow. Every single year, often times several times a year, the same client will be looking to exit its investments. Now you can see how this is a dream for MDs. On top of that, you don't really have to be networking all the time for new businesses because the same set of clients can give you deals every year. The icing on the cake is that most PE firms are located in NYC, so from what I've seen, the MDs in sell-side/exclusive M&A travel out of the city much less frequently than other MDs. Also just a fun fact about these teams - I believe Lehman Brothers started it in early-mid 2000s during the PE boom, and the bankers from Lehman spread out to different BBs to start the group within the M&A team.

OP - Hope this is what you were looking for. If it wasn't, then I at least hope this is helpful for those who thought you asked a stupid question.