Information on BofA FIG

Will give my 2 cents on the group.

tl;dr:

- solid policy's, group culture / work life balance better now then before and still improving

- a decent amount of turnover but have also increased headcount

Sector perspectives:

     Banks / Spec fin: shitty, avoid

     Asset Management: good culture, decent deal flow

     Insurance: revamped team, seems to be doing better, good junior culture

     FinTech: Solid team, competitive with top banks, sweaty at times

The overall group culture has materially improved since I was an analyst. Most A&As seem to be working less then 80-90 hours most of the time (was virtually always 85-105 hours when I was an analyst). Saturday's are pretty well protected (very protected if you have enough pull to push back). Sunday's are increasingly only for deal-related / critical work (i.e monday AM meeting) and is pretty well respected but it may depend on your team / MD. They have started pushing 9PM work stoppages on Fridays. The team has had an unofficial hybrid policy since September with most people showing up for at least 2 days between Tuesday and Thursday. Vacations are respected, and people generally take most of their days (I believe you get 15 days + 5 sick / personal days), this has gotten out of hand a bit with 1st year analysts IMO (I wasn't allowed to take more than like 1 day off until the new class started). Base comp for analysts is street, whatever it is now (110k-ish), Bonuses seemed reasonable $45k-$100k for 1st year analysts and like ($65k-$120k for analyst 2s). Associates got screwed this year on bonuses relative to peers (namely GS, MS and JPM), casued a couple people to leave. Turnover at the junior level was outrageous last year (new associate class had 15, 3 remain, though have added a couple laterals) and five 1st year analysts left before bonuses). That said, overall headcount is now up from where it was it was 2 years ago and that has helped materially. Also have a solid india team (for one page profiles, repetitive tasks etc.) and a business analyst team (same as india team but sit in Charlotte), definitely saves at least a few hours each week. Meal policy is $30 for dinner after 6:30p (they are very strict on this) and Uber after 9pm during work week. I think weekend policy is same but you get $30 for lunch too. Free group lunch on Thursdays as well and I know they are pushing for more A&A  and sector / group events. 

Its worth noting the group just verticalized A&As after having a generalist program for a long time - I think new A&As will still be generalists for a couple months then rank their sector preferences after that before being allocated by staffer. There's pretty good camaraderie at the junior level though it seems to very a bit by sector / where you sit

Group Breakdown:

Banks / Spec Fin: They make about 40-50% of the staff on the floor and haven't done well for years in terms of M&A. They did one big at the end of 2020 and 2021 after not announcing a single M&A deal since the summer of 2018. A&As is an odd mix of the best associates (often A2A laterals from other groups / offices) and the usually the worst MBAs and analysts that the other verticals don't want (though there are some exceptions). Their lifestlye seems to have improved a bit after being brutual for 4+ years since the sector head left to run JEF FIG. That said the banks MDs aren't good and have added 2 per year for the last 3 years, usually a washed-up banker from another large shop (they've brought like 3 ex-JPM MDs over, none are good). Less sure on the spec fin side as a couple new people have joined and am not really sure on them. Overall, I would avoid this team.

Asset Management: Probably the best vertical culture wise, the 2 sector MDs are both fantastic, one from purely a personality stand point and the other is brilliant, but also a good guy. They have pretty decent deal flow for a sector that is pretty much dominated by a few big players and seems to have less activity than other sectors. Seem to do a lot of minority stakes rather than full M&A deals but they just may be the state of the market. Good culture, good people. They have a lot of meetings but basically use virtually the same book for 90% of them so not too bad.

Insurance: 80% of the team that was here in 2019 is now gone (was a top insurance shop then, group head went to run a MDP portco, another senior MD went back to MS, another went to be CFO of a public company, another CIO of an investment fund and another went to JPM last year). They seem to have done a nice job regrouping and are working on some interesting stuff, they hired the head of Corp Dev of Metlife last year and an ex-BX guy (was at BX IB before they spun off PJT). They have a pretty good culture at the mid / junior level and most of the MDs are decent people. Things seem to be picking up for them across brokers, P&C and Life after haivng a rough 2020-2021. I would expect them to be 3-4 in the league tables for M&A this year as they build momentum. Also, worth noting that the junior culture seems pretty good, harder to gauge than the other team, insurance junior bankers show up to the office the most for some reason.

FinTech: Solid team, especially on the payments side of the sector. Very competitive with the large banks on M&A advisory and have several strong relationships with leading fintechs they helps give the team mandates without baking off. Hravy IPO year last year given the activity, though things have slowed on this front this year. Are often an active bookrunner but not lead left on IPO mandates (GS and MS are lead left on like 70% them). There are 5 MDs, two are good, one is ok, one is terrible, and one is a newly promoted director but seems like he will be decent. Primary coverage consists of payments, wealthteach/ wealth, exchanges / market infrastruture, consumer finance and crypto/blockchain. Definetly a competitive team on the street but can get sweaty at times as teams are usually lean and they chase a lot of stuff. In fairness, there is a lot going on in the space and they do win their fair share of mandates so efforts are not wasted. They have lost some good mid level bankers in the last couple years (4 now work at SVB) and recently lost a good senior director to Citi after he didn't make MD.

I know the group the hiring several A&As in the next couple months.