Houston SA 2024
Last of a dying breed of oil and gas hoes, interning at a bank there next summer, and figured I'd sum up the Houston banks for those of y'all considering recruiting there (probably a bad idea) based on my experiences this spring. Unless you're at a Texas school where NY is a reach this is all pretty useless information but this list goes out to all the UT, SMU, Rice, A&M kids etc.,
GS: sweaty, great OFS, seniors always on some shit, good luck
MS: lol
JPM: sweaty, good in M&A, will for sure toss out some oil and gas technicals on a call
Citi: catches a lotta flack in NY, actually solid in Houston, good in M&A but top guy (Trauber) just retired and head of upstream left for Guggenheim which will shake things up
BofA: weirdly awful compared to other locations, don't do deals, wannabe Citi
Barclays: fratty culture similar to MS but more so, great in midstream despite losing seniors
Credit Suisse: curbstomp everyone in ECM, a little hardo/robot, better culture than GS
UBS: not sure if they have a Houston office, if so probably a food truck
Deutsche: think they closed a few years ago judging by lack of recent Houston police raids
Jefferies: best A&D shop, you will not sleep
RBC: chill/fratty culture, second best A&D, very committed to energy long-term
Evercore: crush M&A/RX as expected, brutal culture, insane pay
TPH: well-respected boutique, punch well above their weight, odd culture
Intrepid: ultimate Chad/Brad bank, if you are an SAE at a southern school this is the place for you, new firm but gaining momentum due to senior talent, insanely fratty
Moelis: wannabe Evercore, starting to do deals, weird culture
Wells Fargo: good for debt and credit cards, lost everyone to Moelis
Piper Sandler: great culture, not super active but solid place
PJT: barely have a Houston office
Lazard: run lean, not good M&A but solid RX
Greenhill: sharp decline since losing seniors to MS, small team
Guggenheim: not good, could be worse, decent culture I think and on the up
Not gonna rank these because its pretty subjective but holistically can't go wrong with Barclays, RBC, JPM, MS, Piper Sandler, TPH, Evercore, etc.,
Citi now in decline as top producer retired and head of upstream left for Guggenheim
Lmao the piece about Deutsche is accurate
Thanks just updated
For EVR/LAZ RX, is deal flow fairly restricted to O&G mandates? Or is it generalist?
Houston office is specific to O&G, and Houston boutique roles are typically just "generalist energy" which means M&A/RX. Also you work in conjunction with NY RX analysts when that stuff comes up as they have the technical knowledge for distressed scenarios whereas Houston analysts are specialized in energy so know O&G well
Valid
Honestly didn’t know they had banking, could be decent I genuinely have no clue
I'm incoming, just wanted to know more about their energy presence
No intel so I didn’t include
TPH?
^Initially started this thread to inform future candidates and this is very accurate. Good stuff
Why does TPH have an odd culture?
Have heard that it’s hyper conservative and both of their female interns did not accept return offers. Sure it’s Houston but normally workplace culture is pretty politically/socially agnostic in investment banking due to the generally intense environment
Virtually every group in Houston is conservative
TPH doesn’t have an odd culture because of politics. It is one of the less conservative shops in Houston. Rather, TPH has an odd culture because they preach a family atmosphere that is respectful of WLB with great deal flow and that’s not the case. They in fact have a huge face time culture and have been on the decline over the last few years. That’s why half of their SAs from last year aren’t FT at TPH.
Is Jeff top?
As far as A&D goes, which comprised a ton of the energy transactions for Houston teams, Jefferies absolutely crushes it. However, these analysts sounded like zombies on networking calls and would probably sell their souls for a 30 minute nap. Bet the exits are good but it’s just brutal to work Jefferies Houston hours
Jeff Analysts work a lot, agreed and everyone knows that. But it’s just as much, at worse, as JPM / GS / EVR / Citi. Except the turnover there is so much worse than at Jefferies so that should tell you something about the hours / culture at Jefferies. Evercore had 100% 1st year analyst turnover and Citi was 50%. JPM Houston has a clearly documented toxic culture (you can find the thread on that recently) and GS is not far behind on having some crazy seniors.
Considering the aforementioned, Jefferies isn’t in a league of its own hours wise and pretty sure any of the analysts at these shops would love to sleep more if they could - but they know that’s the price you pay to work at some of the best shops. Yet the higher retention should tell you something.
Also, JefCo is leading the LTM league tables and yeah it’s great for A&D it’s also very good for midstream. In fact, it’s been the advisor on majority of the midstream deals of note in the past year so I wouldn’t solely characterize it as a hardcore A&D. The split is more like 45-50% upstream, 35% midstream and the rest is energy transition / OFS (heavily skewed towards energy transition.
No one’s coming to JefCo (or any of the top shops in Houston) for the hours. That said, they get the best deal flow per capita and are compensated extremely well for their time. Exits have also been some of the best I have seen recently.
Seems like Piper Sandler's energy group has closed a ton of deals in 2022. Heard they were even on the profrac IPO. Culture seems great as well so I’m curious what others think or have experienced regarding the team & deal flow.
I know a couple people doing Piper Sandler and haven’t heard anything negative about their Houston office. Sure it’s not the name brand of JPM but you do the same stuff with chill people. If you’re recruiting Houston fs hop on the phone with them and the other firms emphasized to find where you vibe
Tough to rank these groups. They’re all pretty different. Just gotta network and see who you’d fit in with.
Thanks for starting up this thread. Possible to consolidate some info about exits/ PE recruiting? Kicking off with the three firms mentioned above for deal flow: JEFF, JPM, and RBC - what are their exits like? Feel that Jefferies has strong energy PE exits. What about JPM/ RBC?
RBC sends a bunch of guys to Quantum and Jeff has a high ceiling for getting offers at a bunch of energy-specific funds. However, not as knowledgeable on JPM but their name carries a lot of weight both across the board and in energy
del
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