Harris Williams Reputation
How does Harris Williams compare to other MMs on the street in terms of reputation and exit ops? Any advice appreciated. Thank you.
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Very strong MM player with excellent exits to MM PE. If you want MM PE then HW is the way to go as their MD’s go to bat for analysts when it comes to buyside recruiting. You’ll get great sell-side M&A experience
Middle of the pack MM player. Behind Rothschild (EB?), Houlihan Lokey (M&A), Jefferies, RBC, William Blair, Baird Better than Stifel
RBC>Jefferies>Roths>HL M&A>Baird>Blair>HW>>>>Stifel
“go to bat” - was waiting to see that
what does MMPE stands for? Middle Market PE?
thoughts on HW london?
Consumer team is one of the best around
There is some variation based on office/vertical, but overall HW has a very good reputation and has perfected the sponsor relationship model. It consistently wins deals against other reputable MMs and occasionally larger, mostly due to its ability to effectively run broad processes and point to sponsor owners and say - we showed you 2x more deals than X, Y and Z, so we deserve a shot. Because of its sponsor-led transaction bias vs. strategics/corporates, it tends to take some great assets to market (clean, easier sale).
Because of its reputation for running broad processes, it has been forced to get more creative with some ad hoc processes, but they are predominantly focused on PE. HW sells itself on process, and if that is a key factor, it can compete with anyone. If it has to pitch against HL, Blair, LMM on positioning and strategy and there are some strategic acquiror considerations in the mix, it will struggle.
So, to summarize, you will get great process experience, below average industry vertical and strategy experience and good access to MM PE funds.
This is spot on.
We compete directly with HW and split roughly 50/50 mandates even though we are a “notch above them” according to most peers.
They are absolute machines at broad sponsor sell-sides. Go out to a ton of buyers and run a pretty cut and dry process. We’ve seen them put out some absurd adjustments in recent deals that have killed deals due to credibility lately.
As a junior, you’ll be worked hard but get a lot of hands on experience. Seem to be good dudes as well - have always enjoyed the AN-VPs when we have worked together on a deal.
hit the nail on the head. from what I hear it’s a lean hard working shop but you get strong deal responsibility as an analyst. believe they are one of the best MM shop to come out of the SE in 21st century. My college buddy does work at a competitor and says they have flopped some deals recently hurting their relationship with some firms
Could you speak to some of the variation based on office/vertical. Are there some of their offices that you think are weaker than others?
For example, Cleveland and D.C. aren't as strong as SF or Richmond.
Though HW was a boutique...
Absolute sweat-shop on sell-side; great if you want that to be your career but lack of products will make a transition to multi- product bank difficult.
Choose wisely, it is a niche sub-product, along with the rest of the non-balance sheet banks.
Exit in London to MM PE is possible, but MM PE generally is very fond of 1) additional European language and 2) Chartered accountant qualification; check the backgrounds of the Graphite / Inflexion / Phoneix guys and that's because smaller teams require a full spread of expertise.
It will give you a good experience, but try to leverage your position to another firm in ~2 years to not get pidgeon holed.
I can't speak for international, but HW pay is among the best for MMs and M&A is why pure play advisory groups are crushing balance sheet banks (see proliferation of EBs), MMs moving upmarket, etc. Balance sheet banks offer less value than they did in prior decades.
HW / Blair / Baird / Lincoln pay exceptionally well (I would know) but your exits are limited (I would also know), again, if you would like to be a career sell-side banker, it is a good place to have a career, but you work exceptionally hard through each layer, never being on less than two sell-sides at Analyst level with exceptionally lean deal teams (one analyst, one associate, one VP or D and an MD or two). It is not a glamorous way to spend your 20s.
The user experience at a larger institution is captured in one key word: support.
You are not writing two IMs, doing two sell-side models with two different Associates at the same time; you have leverage and that leverage is human capital. You have financing support,M&A support, sector support. You do not need to off load your deal when you take your vacation; you are on more deals and have more support.
So yes, for the firm, obviously less profitable, but the guy is not trying to run a MM bank is he; for your Analyst 1 to VP 3 years, absolutely not worth the extra 20 - 30% pre-tax benefit, IMO. People at those banks do not know what they are missing out on in terms of life style vs return elsewhere, and the people who have made the transition will never look back to MM. Moving to Moelis / Evercore / PJT / PWP / Laz is a different story, given they get into the upper realms of real corporate advisory public M&A advice, which again the smaller MM sell side firms do not touch.
The more senior you get the harder it is to sell just the sell-side product at a bigger institution, as any BS Bank M&A team you are expected to have a good amount of public M&A experience and the banks I mentioned do 99% sponsor sell-side M&A (i.e. have no blue book code experience, let alone defense, hostile, P2P, minority investments etc).
Again, not trying to slam it, but be aware that it is exceptionally niche and so choose wisely and if that is you're only option, have a solid couple of years and scale up, unless you want to do that for your entire career.
Furthermore and lastly, the culture is horrid; it is a place where you are told when you can speak in meetings, and slowly given communication exposure through Associate levels to Senior Associate, whilst at a BB you are presenting valuation at Analyst 2 level, As a result, I've seen Senior Associates who cannot communicate as well as Analyst 3's at BBs purely because of practice. The lack of buy-side analysis also will put you at a distinct disadvantage to your comparable analysts, hence why recruiting to PE is even more challenging. You may get lucky and see one opening balance sheet during 2 years at HW, let alone debt sizing based on DSCR macros...
when you say sweatshop, how comparable would the hours be to other banks with the sweatshop label i.e. moelis
are exit opps for HW equal to HL (not RX), Jefferies, RBC
On par with BS-less banks but BS banks whose analysts get M&A, ECM and DCM exposure.
if mm pe is the goal is it worth lateraling from hw to a BB/EB (and potentially losing a year) if I want to work at a 1-2b MM fund
For HW, 1-2bn is on the larger side of exits. Usually between 400-750mm
so yes it’s worth it?
Anecdotal, but my PE firm has an informal ban on hiring HW analysts. We've hired a few in the past and we were less than pleased. Maybe has something to do with the whole "sellside machine" angle--it's a very paint by numbers (pick your analogy) type of experience where you don't get much exposure to actual critical thinking or nuance. You might come out understanding process cold, but may struggle coming up with thoughtful diligence questions, thinking through risks, or modeling convoluted nontraditional financing.
Again, this is one person's experience--maybe we just got a couple duds and the rest of the HW kids are rockstars but that's just what I've seen.
Ban on hiring all HW analysts just because of a couple of bad people...Seems extreme no?
Do you see that analysts from other middle market banks struggle less with these areas? Or is this a broader MM vs BB/EB analyst experience difference
Nah I've been very impressed with kids from places like William Blair and Lazard MM. Harris Williams is just so narrowly focused even compared to the other middle market sellside banks. Once again, this is a very limited sample size (one PE firm, maybe 10 senior bankers and a half dozen analysts) but that's been my fairly consistent experience with those guys.
is your pe firm >2b last fund or more LMM?
Why do all HW CIMs look the same without a lot of depth? Are they still done in MS Word?!
In ppt finally but the content has not improved
I laffed, but it's interesting that sponsors don't seem to care. They are awarding HW business based on seeing the same mediocre product over and over.
Harris Williams is the J.T. Marlin of sell-side M&A.
Interpret that as you will.
They got great exits. Hell most of thror clients are pe firms and you got management willing to help you transition to that step if you wanted.
Regardless of how you categorize the "top mm" banks, from an analyst's perspective, is there meaningful stratification in the strength of pe exits between HW and something like a jefferies, blair, rothschild? Or does it come down more to the individual analysts skill, and all the aforementioned will afford you the same looks more or less?
For example, I saw on linkedin that some blair analysts have gone to charlesbank. Would it be possible for a HW to also get looks (not necessarily a job) from Charlesbank if they so desired and were qualified?
I'm too old to comment on exit opps specifically, but there is a perception among some PE funds that HW analysts are not on par with Blair, HL, etc.
Does anyone know what all-in comp looks like at HW or similar (Blair/Baird etc)
signing is 20k, base is 85, believe year end bonus depends on the office but I've heard 60k thrown around a few times.
So pretty comparable to BBs? And do you know if this is still true in Richmond, which is low COL?
is base salary 85,90,95k for a1,2,3 at hw or do you get a bump your 3rd year.
I spoke with a partner at an EB and according to him, HW has an incredible reputation for those "in the know" and has built a lot of strong relationships with PE firms. From what I have heard, they also have a great culture of hard-working, but well-rounded and solid people (not as sharp-elbows or finance-freaky as other places). All around, a pretty old-school investment bank that is starting to move more upmarket.
High praise coming from an EB partner
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