Investment Banking in Dubai
Can anyone that works, have worked, or have applied for investment banking positions in Dubai, share their experience in terms of the banks to target and the ones to avoid, compensation, hours, culture, main industries, recruitment process, perception of other offices regarding IB in Dubai, etc.? Thank you!
Work in the region so can provide some color here. Moelis is the top shop in MENA and killing it on practically most major transactions in the region, followed by Rothschild then MS/HSBC/JPM. GS was trailing for quite a while but now picking up steam given their reputation with 1MDB made them effectively blacklisted in the region.
Would avoid joining UBS, CS, DB and Barclays as they are not very active in the Middle East, as well as BAML purely since they seem to do only coverage and London comes in to execute.
Other boutiques e.g Evercore have extremely small teams and don’t close very often. In terms of deal experience would try to aim for Moelis/Rothschild/MS/JPM for good reps. Culture at Moelis I hear is good but painful hours, GS culture is quite poor, Evercore seems to have decent hours but poor deal flow. Places like CS and UBS just churn pitches so hours can be quite long with no deal experience to show.