Who would you choose between the two groups?
I am perfectly fine being in Energy or Houston (originally from here). Know that both the groups are the top groups in energy but would like to know which one is the better overall choice (pay, deal flow, exits). Also don't mind the hours.
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If you don’t mind hours and care about pay and deal flows, then Jefferies is better.
JEF
Why?
Dealflow way better and you'll actually have a chance to work on it at JEF. It's really a no-brainer imo unless you really need capital market for some reason.
JEF culture and hours are supposed to be tough, but Citi's culture is just as bad if not worse (read: seniors are awful to juniors) (maybe hours are barely slightly better?), but Citi still really sweaty.
Citi Houston is hemorrhaging analysts, don't think JEF is. Dealflow at JEF makes it worth the pain, can't say the same for Citi.
Source: Friends at these banks.
Forgot to mention pay -- night and day in favor of JEF.
Gotcha - makes sense. Do you know the pay at both the places?
Have a friend who recently was an analyst at JEF said they clear 200k
This is right on. Culture will be very rough at either of those, but JEF pays way more and exits are better
Jefferies all the way unless you really want the balance sheet bank experience. Your M&A deal experience and compensation will be significantly better at Jefferies, and while Houston culture is all around tough, Citi and Jefferies are both on the tougher end of the spectrum and you'll work at both places.
Any difference in the exits?
You’ll get great looks at either shop. Both place incredibly well with the energy funds. Ample opportunity for infra/generalist funds as well
What’s the pay comparison between the two?
Top of street versus middle/low street
Any numbers?
How were the 2022 on-cycle results from both of these places?
Most of the things have been said already and I agree.
One thing I would add is that Energy is a capital intensive business so it always helps being in a bank with a big balance sheet which Citi offers.
Also while WTI is sky high right now and the state of the industry looks healthy and profitable, it could all turn to Armageddon pretty quickly. In a prolonged period of low prices, Citi offers more stability in that regard since it just has more products to offer. Till 5 years ago I would have called jefferies a pier A&D shop but seems like thats changing so I wouldn’t be too fussed about that now compared to when I made a decision 7 years ago.
both are sweatshops but at citi you might be able to sneak in 6 hours of sleep on average. jefferies you’d be lucky with that but both are pretty terrible hours.
I am perfectly fine being in Energy or Houston (originally from here. I Know that both the groups are the top groups in energy. I thought that Citi Bank is saying that they will start and continue to build a bridge between minority communities and businesses by offering. https://www.heffinance.com/cannabis-finance.php
When people say houston can get sweaty what do they typically mean?
For example, I’m at an industrial group and though I love the team the hours are way worse than I thought, currently on two deals aren’t even launched and I’m consistently past 2:30am as an associate, VPs are frequently on until around then as well.
Peers at some BBs saying they’re typically logging off between 12-1am, which would be a huge difference for me.
Probably just as sweaty as your group if not more.
Agree with above, 2-4am consistently with 1 or 2 all nighters a week, plus working on way more projects than typical for a junior so days are busy too. Your experience sounds in line.
Houston across the board rivals the sweatiest groups in NYC, which is unusual for a regional location / for every group to work as hard as they do. If you want 12-1am focus on NYC or Chicago outside of the top tier groups
Dang, guess I'll count my blessings. Do you work through the weekend too? Activity high primarily based on prices or are you really understaffed (or both)? Sorry for all the questions.
Same as NYC. Personal record for most hours worked without sleeping is probably ~60ish. You're still working for the same types of people (sponsors, CEOs, senior MDs, etc) so the expections on work product and turnaround time are no different.
If anything, hours are probably worse, since if you're covering energy, you're covering subverticals with completely different valuation / modeling methodologies - Upstream: NAV / drill schedule / ARIES runs vs Midstream: complicated cap stacks, GP/LP economics, IDRs, FERC financials for interstate pipelines vs Refining, which is more-or-less a project finance modelling exercise (and getting DP'd on both end with commodity price exposure), vs OFS: which is about as generic / vanilla as it gets. Plus, you get the emerging energy transition verts that seem to be pairing up with the legacy energy verts (E&P + CCS/CCUS; Midstream/infra + hydrogen; refining + RD / SAF), which we're sort of figuring out as we go along...
Jefferies Houston comp and deal flow is way down from the golden era of shale and pay now bottom street. Bunch of senior departures the last few years and no A3’s took the A~to-A promotion this year. Whole tech team also got poached by Citi last year.
Lol at this. You don’t know what you are talking about:
- the group’s ranked No. 2 on the street rn in the league tables
- pay is still great - A2 last summer got 150k in bonuses (top of the street)
- no A3s took A2A because the Houston group hasn’t had a 3 year program for greater than 5-6 years now lol. Out of the 5 analysts who are completing their summer, 1 is sticking around (17%) (in line with historical average). The exits are Apollo, Quantum, NGP, Carnelian - which are near the top of the street (this is not including another associate who’s going to NGP and one more that’s going to Carlyle in a non-energy PE group).
- only two main senior departures over the last 5 years - Ajay and recently Rob Anderson. Both left for Quantum - so a client and not a competing bank (which is when a senior departure is bad for business). Ajay has since become the co-president of Quantum which is great for the group. The other senior leadership has remained solid.
- if you call 3-4 people (out of 30 people) leaving for Citi when they weren’t getting promoted at Jefferies “the entire tech team getting poached” then go for it. It is very common for every bank to try to recreate Jef’s tech team but none have gotten half the success this group has.
as you can see, almost everything you wrote was incorrect.
^^ pls for the love of God. Don’t choose Citi. Received an offer in the past and figured out that Citi’s culture sucked to the point that an AN1 confessed to me that “my friends at competing BBs have better life than me. But i’m sure i have better skill sets.”” Learned than the attrition rate is so high that they would have 50% AN1 leave before bonus (some without jobs lined up). Sure Citi’s deal flow may be better than JEF, but between the two firms, JEF has a better (relative) culture. JEF’s pay is also much more than Citi, and in terms of exits, Citi and JEF are on par with each other. Unless ur sure about a non-IB life after grinding hard (in which case Citi might be better), just choose JEF.
as someone who recently left jef, let me tell you that you are much better served working at a BB doing half the hours and much more corporate stuff. Both places aren’t fun. But I cannot tell you how much I hated working for jefferies despite the prestige and the pay. Culture is absolutely atrocious, I have never had to be that fake in years just to get through the day when in reality the majority of the guys are super sexist and condescending assholes. Literally go anywhere else, name brand will get you the exact same exit opps and you will probably get to sleep more. I saw a few new people start and I have not felt worse for such new naive analysts that want to really go after it and learn only to be crushed by the insane workload. Literally get somewhere where you can get to pe and get out.
Can I pm you?
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