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Bumping out of interest, not a lot interest/info in lower MM around here.

I've interviewed with a couple of them between internships, FT, and lateraling. From what I can tell (these are largely just feelings from talking with people)...

Stephens has their stuff together. solid teams in Little rock and ATL (transport/logistics/industrials?) Seems like a cool tight knit firm. Probably the best in terms of pure advisory assuming a generalist role. It's private too, which has benefits.

STRH has some strong teams, I only know tech but fairly strong in data centers and towers. Wells Fargo lite is the feeling I got in terms of both capabilities and deal size. Nothing to sneeze at.

Stifel seems like a bit of a mess. More a network of boutiques trying to build out an integrated platform and a bit of a balance sheet. They seem to occupy the bottom of the middle market.

Never met anyone at opco.

 

Interviewed at STRH, Stifel and Stephens. Can't comment on Oppenheimer, I always feel like they are just life science and HC like Ziegler.

Here's from my experience during the lateral interview and I didn't get the offer, so take it with a grain of salt.

STRH: Seems to be very group dependent, the team that I was interviewing with was relatively new so the associate told me they are fighting hard to get any M&A work possible, but most of their deals are still on the debt side. FYI, the team was started right ~2009, so I'm not sure if that's consider new. This interview was also right around the merger with BB&T, and it seems like they weren't exactly sure how the structure of their group look like, so a lot of confusion from my end trying to understand the culture and structure of the group. The people I met and networked with were very nice but straight forward people. IMO they were most open to reply back to you on LinkedIn and was generally happy to hear your story (be ready to be ask technical in these info session).

Stifel: The group I interviewed with was a new built group for ~2-3 years that was started by a MD at Jefferies, interview was mainly around my deal experience and the structure seem very lean, because the MD reach out and interview me on 1st round. As stated before, the groups seem very scattered and not much interaction between each other. For example, I was interviewing in a product group and according to the MD they source and execute everything on their own, and didn't seem like they were able to leverage coverage team to source for these deals. Not sure if that's the general procedure for MM, but it was very different coming from a BB.

Stephens: This was the most unstructured and unformal interview. The overall feeling that I got is that they have a very old school culture think like Bear Sterns or something you were see from one of the old school finance movie. I reach out to an analyst so, next week I got a call for a interview. There was not even a job portal to submit my application. It also seems like everyone got in the firm through some connection or networking. Overall, feel like a UGA or emory finance club+ frat 2.0. However, I saw some of their past transactions, it looked very solid compare to most MMs. I would say they are definitely above STRH or Stifel base from my research into their past transactions.

 

Interviewed at Stephens, SunTrust, and Stifel for SA and got offers from two. Haven't worked at any of them so take what I say as you will. Also have to say the guy above pretty much nailed it on the head.

Suntrust: Top choice if you want to be in Atlanta. Good offices, good structure, work on good deals. The people there seem happy and they have a very friendly culture. Exits are limited to the south as far as I can tell, and lateraling upstream to another firm in another city can be kind of difficult.

Stephens: Very unstructured interview, and in general it was a casual process. The culture is very fratty like the guy above said, but they do good deals also and give you a solid experience. Would say this is the top choice if you want to stay in banking, and exits seem in line with MM/LMM.

Stifel: Don't have as many solid deals as Stephens and the culture is disjointed. Not the top choice if you want to stay in banking, and you're pretty limited to LMM exits. Of the three though, stifel nyc/sf would probably give you the best chance at lateraling upstream.

Have nothing on oppenheimer

 

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