Goldman vs Moelis

GS. More exit opps.

Moelis. Greater experience...PE,Restructuring and M&A.

Moelis PE is more like, "hey, we like this advisory deal, let's put $50mm on it" than anything else. Restructuring there should be decent, but GS has enough "prestige" to overshadow even Ken Moelis.

I'd take Moelis not because Goldman has shortcomings but because of how exciting it would be to get into arguably the most promising boutique. Look at where you think you'd get the most over the next five years, not the last five years.

Moelis

I read from some old thread that analysts are put to a lot of work at Moelis. So consider work hours.

I don't really get all this talk about "up-and-coming." They jumped into the pool with the big boys and they're thriving. I wouldn't call winning the Yahoo-MSFT mandate, advising InBev-Anheuser (among other notable deals), and poaching some top top senior talent from BBs "promising" and "up-and-coming" -- MoCo is the real deal and they are here to stay. The restructuring practice is picking up some serious deals as well. As a junior analyst, you can't beat the M&A/restructuring model of Moelis.

Ken Moelis is a great banker, but being the board advisor collecting third or foruth bank credit for 2 big deals doesnt exactly mean your an elite boutique. PWP, GHL, evercore all are on massive deals at higher positions to the left. Also, there's significant key man risk thats not present at the other boutiques. Personally I'd go to BS M&A/Restructuring, Greenhill, Evercore over Moelis.

"Some top senior talent??" other than the UBS guys that moved over from DLJ/UBS, who have they poached?

That being said, the firm is a great place to be, but comparing it to Goldman doesnt make sense especially from an exit opportunities point of view. Goldman is much better from an optionality point of view, especially considering for a lot of analysts going to industry is going to have to be considered post program. No one in industry has heard of Moelis, even GS Houston gets you the GS cache and trust me, its valuable.

Here are the circumstances I woudl take Moelis in: 1) goldman is heartless, if you are supremely risk averse take moelis just not to risk being moved to operations 2) along the same lines, if you are paranoid the bb banking model is done forever (which it very well could be) take moelis/ other boutique

Id take Evercore or GHL over Moelis tho, just my 2 cents

1) The name will carry you further, especially if you someday decide you hate banking 2) If you decide to leave ship after 2-3 years as an analyst at Goldman, it'll usually be a direct promote to associate. If you move from another firm to Goldman, you will usually lose a year (3rd year analyst becomes second year, etc.) 3) Culture - Goldman's culture is somewhat tilted towards being "nicer". While this is obviously a group dependent statement, there is a giant emphasis to refrain from yelling / chewing people out, etc. (although I'm sure you'll find instances of this, I would guess they would be much less than that of other banks)

Moelis is way overrated on this board. Besides ken and the guys he brought over from ubs with him, i'm definitely not seeing the "top senior talent" they apparently have. As far as boutiques go, i would (and did) turn them down for pwp, greenhill, or evercore without hesitation

GS is better than moelis, but its close, so you should probably just go to the one who's culture you fit in with better. Of course, moelis treats their analysts like shit, so even then you should probably stick with goldman. ghl, evr, pwp, bx would be a much tougher choice though

what about BX M&A vs GS IBD

Keep it coming I'm sure people have more to say...

personally, goldman will always be there, and the exit oppos are probably much better.

Moelis is up and coming according to one person I know who was a SA there and know what's going on inside.

As far as culture goes, if you look at UBS LA a couple years back, that's the moelis culture for you - total sweatshop

But in the future , the big bb model will die out, as someone mentioned.

So if you want stability, moelis is the way to go.

By the way, what's people's thoughts on pwp sf? I just recently had an interview with them.

Moelis is still less than 2 years old. How can you tout GS's exit ops especially since we haven't seen Moelis' first graduating analyst class? I think they'll tear it up.

EDIT: Also, I think why people "overrate" Moelis here is because of how fast it's growing (reminder again: 2 years). On the league tables, Moelis ranks in the Top 20 Worldwide Announced M&A Advisory for 2008 Q4 (GS: 1, Evercore: 24, Greenhill: 23, PWP: not ranked), and is ranked #21 for worldwide completed deals whereas Greenhill, Evercore and PWP aren't ranked.

my opinion- Moelis isn't overrated.

agreed w/Crunchybanker! I think some people are forgetting that Moelis is less than 2 years old.

The fact that this post was created and people are even comparing Moelis to Goldman speaks volumes about Moelis.

In the restructuring league tables Moelis is #3 competing with the likes of Lazard and Houlihan who've been around for years in the restructuring business- since the 90's: http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2009/01/banking_on_bankruptcies.php

They have already placed in the top 15 with banks that have been around for 10s and 100s of years in the league tables: http://www.iddmagazine.com/issues/2009_2/189001-1.html

In addition think about Goldman's offer rate for summer analysts... Do you really want to work for the government?

Moelis for 3 reasons

1. offer rate
2. competing with fewer ppl
3. awesome opportunity

Just imagine what they will do with 3 years under their belt...

I think by the end of this year, we'll be able to see how Moelis is really travelling.

Take MOELIS. Goldman isn't the prestegiouse firm it used to be. I would easily take a Lazard, Moelis, and Evercore over Goldman......Look at the savage Hank Paulson has become since going through goldman.

I'm not going to tell you where to go, but I will weigh in on someone's comment at GS vs. Moelis in terms of culture and hours and shed some light on any comments that I think are misleading.

You will work a lot at both places. A buddy of mine spent some time in TMT at GS and got killed - 100+ weeks 7 days a week, went in on July 4th. Everyone in the office went outside, watched the fireworks and then went back to work a couple more hours. Does this mean this can't happen at Moelis or any other bank for that matter? NO In general, people at Moelis work just as much as people at any other shop - if you can't handle it don't be in banking.

It is also important to note that most rumors about Moelis being a sweatshop are driven off vault and other postings when it first started. When the firm first started it was a bunch of MDs with a few junior guys. Of course, with not enough junior people those on the bottom are going to get killed. But now Moelis has been on a hiring streak and has been building out its analyst and associate classes.

Moreover, if you want to be part of a firm that is growing and building - and be able to say in a few years from now that I helped build Moelis to what it is today - you'll going to put in the necessary hours.

In terms of culture - it all depends on whether you fit with the people (it sounds like BS but if you can't get along with the people you work with you're going to hate your job). There are going to be assholes (or people you view as assholes) at any firm. I think at smaller firms like Moelis and Evercore there's a more tight knit culture in the office and you can actually go drink with your VPs and MDs.

In response to a comment about Moelis hiring top guys from BB - they have hired MDs from JP and MS, several from Bear Stearns (whether you considered them a BB or not) and their head of the London office was the former Vice Chairman of IB at DB. (There's also their restructuring practice that they've built out/ are building out). There was also a recent WSJ article saying they were in talks with over a dozen possible MD hires. Moelis has a complicated hiring process for MDs since they want to bring in people dedicated to relationship banking.

Just wanted to share my thoughts on some of the comments people made. Good luck on your decision.

great thread

Would be great if anyone from Moelis actually were on this board, and could elaborate on Moelis' culture, hours, etc...

Which Moelis office were you in?

And why didn't you pursue a full-time offer at Moelis? What didn't you like? I'm assuming you didn't because of the "Doing S&T recruiting was a pain-in-the-ass with Moelis on the resume, let alone applying to London or Asia" comment.

Also something someone has brought up is offer rates. What was the offer rate for Moelis' summer analyst to become full-time?

Thanks...keep the thread going!

how many SAs is moelis picking up this summer for each of their offices? also, are they done recruiting? is it too late to send in my resume?

Moelis is looking to hire 14-16 Summer Analysts in New York and LA. The majority of the hires will be in NY. They have wrapped up recruiting. Awesome, awesome firm with great people -- cannot stop singing their praises.

did they already extend offers?

im pretty sure all offers have been extended. they gave them out at my target school a while ago

aardvarkaa, that's not true. For LA and NY, recruiting wrapped up last week. None of their other offices are really worth mentioning as they're essentially non-players.

which is exactly what i said. recruiting has wrapped up already. the "a while ago" part was only specific to my school (but included the la/ny offices).

I've heard that today was superday for Wharton kids? Can anyone confirm this?

"Last year, I recruited for MoCo, among many other firms, and received an offer from them. During a visit to the NY office, I ended up getting handed off to an analyst, who then dropped me off in an empty conference room and left me there for 15 min. or so until the VP in charge of recruiting finished a call. I dunno about you, but if that's the way they wanted to "sell" me, I can't say that I was impressed."

Wow, qwerty that actually happened to me too. I spent a good half hour waiting in between interviews.

Moelis has finished their recruiting for most of the West Coast schools and have moved their recruiting to Wharton and non-target schools.

For LA, they're looking to take 4-5 kids. Not sure about NY.

I would also like to hear some perspective from people who have worked at Moelis, especially the LA office.

I heard there were 1 or 2 spots left last week. Everything might be gone now...

what's the general feeling on the deciding between the top boutiques in general? anyone have any preferences/reasons for putting one or some above the others? (consider bx M&A, Laz, Evr, Ghl, Moelis, etc)

Personal preference:

Greenhill Evercore Lazard BX M&A Moelis

Moelis is less likely to put you on an accelerated 1 year analyst program than Goldman

Flip a coin.

Wins!!!

Some of you have posted about how you had to wait for your informationals and interviews. I'm sure I probably did too. However, you have to think about why you were kept waiting. The individuals you had to meet with were probably busy or on a fire drill. Moreover, they only have 150 bankers between it's 4 offices in the US and it's hard to find someone to step in unlike maybe going to a much larger bank. Moreover, it's also a good sign they didn't just ask a 1st year analyst to fill in who had no clue what he or she would be doing. This demonstrates that they want to get recruiting right and if you go there full-time they're not going to waste your time (usually - but it's the same at all bank). Also, I've had interviews with individuals who were recruiting for the first time for a bank and it's something you don't want to experience.

For the most part summer recruiting is done and offers have been extending.

Also, just wanted to point out that Moelis has hired Roger Hoit, an MD covering Financial Sponsors, from Morgan Stanley (a BB for those of you who are worried about Moelis not receiving top-talent from BB). I read somewhere that Mr. Hoit was head of Sponsors at MS but I can't verify that. I do know he has extensive relations with KKR and advised them on their buyout of TXU and KKR's agreement to buy KKR Private Equity Investors.

Judging from experience working and having close friends who worked on a few of these large deals with Moelis and Blackstone (separately) as side-by-side, neither of them contributed nearly as much as the "bigger" bank/banks in the deal. So as much as league tables and anecdotes might say otherwise, I would go with a good Goldman group based on actual junior experience

Moelis over Goldman- Hands Down...... enough said!

Name me some M&A deals Moelis has done in 2009 please... It did what, $2 billion worth of transactions? What a joke.

Goldman hands down.

No brainer Goldman. Moelis is very overrated.

Both are excellent.

I would take Goldman Sachs. However, Moelis seems to be everyone's wet dream...at least it's the case at my school.

Goldman hands down.

I'd take moelis. Especially for summer since GS has a low SA retention rate. also, you can work both restructuring and m&a at moelis.