How do UBS top groups compare to top BB’s in terms of dealflow/exit opps/ comp/Street rep, etc.

As the title says, how do UBS’ top groups (Sponsors, Levfin, GIG, FIG, etc.) compare to JPM, MS, GS and BofA. Future outlook would be appreciated as-well, as I understand UBS is in an interesting position since CS.

31 Comments
 

Dude take your own responsibility. People from worse banks with no deal experience such as random MM's end up at BB seats through lateraling if you want a banking role. In terms of exits, saying UBS won't give you MF exits is totally correct and broadly true. Saying getting UMM is difficult is also correct, but saying you can't get banking opps; well that is completely on you. Banking laterals care significantly less about what firm you are coming from than PE does.

 

Not comparable to the big 3 of JPM/MS/GS point blank. People who have previously commented are either the bottom-bucket of analysts and couldn't convert any of their headhunter outreaches into offers or lying, as saying people are only here bcus there are no exits is a WILD take. We get tons of headhunter outreach weekly, so if you can't convert any of them it's not on the group but on you (I would once again assume people at one of the top 3 banks or an EB would get more of such outreach).

It's verifiably true that people from LevFin/Sponsors have MF PC exits (look at past exits, there are 1-2 going to MF PC a year) and MM/UMM exits for PE. GIG and FIG lean more towards solid MM exits with some UMM exits.

Again, this doesn't compare at all to JPM/MS/GS but is relatively comparable to an average group at a mid-tier BB most likely in terms of PE exits as only the top-tier mid-tier BBs get MF exits anyways.

Source: Did PE recruiting at one of these groups and am going to an MM/UMM fund (5-10Bn in last fund raise). 

 

UBS Investment banking is just so it can tell wealth management clients that they have an investment bank and not a serious bank.

  • They loan their loanbook aquired from wealth management clients, to bussinesses as debt instruments
  • They then beg sponsors and clients for freebie credit or the abaility to be on buy side and sell sides, given they are trusted lenders
  • They also try to win wealth clients IB Fees before they start a process to determine which bank to use (bake-off), as a first mover advantage, else they usually lose. Wealth client deals are smaller, unknown names and likely less than $1bn

Not a lot of corporate clients given most MDs aren't seen as knowledgable experts in respective fields to give corporate advise, at least not relative to GS/JPM/MS. They are more loan processors for debt, ride-alongs on M&A given role as lender which requires little efoort, or play minor roles in ECM riding along the process of a serious bank who is actually drafting the registration statement.

 
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Not applicable to all groups. Maybe for some groups like tech that have none of their own deal flow. Look at GIG or FIG deals for this year, I don't think they are on some of these deals b/c of wealth relationships. Pactiv-Novolex or Rio Tinto-Arcadium are both 5Bn+ deals that all very recently got announced by industrials for instance and there's no viable relationship with WM there. Does UBS win a lot of sponsor-based deals? Yes of course, that's the business strategy of the bank, and not even an uncommon strategy within the BBs (basically all BBs also do LevFin for the sponsors which helps them win M&A mandates - UBS is just worse at converting the relationships as of right now for most groups).

Again can we all please stop generalizing the entire bank based on the experiences of certain groups? For example, I have heard Tech loves begging the sponsors and LevFin people for credit, but not every coverage group does that and the reason tech does it is that they are absolutely the trash of the bank with no deal flow... other groups have flow and many people are working on real deals (still mostly LevFin stuff but increasingly more M&A). I don't understand why there can seemingly be no balanced discussion of this firm and only people talking about the worst groups. Of course the firm looks like shit when you talk about the worst groups, but this question literally asked about the TOP groups in specific, tech experiences are absolutely irrelevant here.  

Edit 12/21: Just to show not nitpicking recent deals not being related to WM. GIG just announced recently that they were the sole advisor to Eliot on the buyout of American Greetings from CD&R. Value undisclosed but obviously major deal given the sponsors involved here. 

 

I bet tech tries to claim this is as actually their deal because it has a website and is therefore e-commerce🤡

 

UBS Investment banking is just so it can tell wealth management clients that they have an investment bank and not a serious bank.

  • They loan their loanbook aquired from wealth management clients, to bussinesses as debt instruments
  • They then beg sponsors and clients for freebie credit or the abaility to be on buy side and sell sides, given they are trusted lenders
  • They also try to win wealth clients IB Fees before they start a process to determine which bank to use (bake-off), as a first mover advantage, else they usually lose. Wealth client deals are smaller, unknown names and likely less than $1bn

Not a lot of corporate clients given most MDs aren't seen as knowledgable experts in respective fields to give corporate advise, at least not relative to GS/JPM/MS. They are more loan processors for debt, ride-alongs on M&A given role as lender which requires little efoort, or play minor roles in ECM riding along the process of a serious bank who is actually drafting the registration statement.

I've been in LF here for 3 years and not once have I worked on a wealth sourced deal.

We don't compare to GS/JPM/BofA but to those reading this, lots of misinformation here.

 

Dude obviously most wealth companies aren’t large enough to have rated debt

 

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