Jefferies SF vs Greenhill SF vs Moelis LA
Hi all! Would love to get feedback on all 3 of the offices for SA 2023. Based on the forum, it seems like Moelis LA purely wins out from prestige, but after networking and talking with my SD interviewers, I learned that Moelis LA, while generalist, has a huge focus on media and C&R from its deal flow, and I'm much more interested in tech banking than media and C&R. Would love to get some advice!
You're absolutely right, Moelis LA obviously wins on prestige. They are also media / C&R focused, given that LA is the media capital of the world.
From what I know, Greenhill is a cut above Jefferies and I'd go with them, unless you really vibe with the people at the other firm instead. San Fran is definitely the place to be if you're interested in tech.
Lol, SF banker here, the Greenhill office really isn't that good in terms of deal flow and analyst experience, definitely below Jefferies. They do still get solid exits though.
West coast tech banker here who can provide some insight:
Greenhill SF: Generalist M&A/RX oriented towards Tech and HC. Very small office. Deal flow isn't amazing, and exits are OK, mostly MM and UMM PE in the past, but if the seniors like you they really go to bat for you. The culture in the office is pretty solid, the seniors are all pretty nice people and genuinely care about the juniors. While your deal experience likely won't be amazing, a benefit is that the hours in the office are pretty light. Some friends of mine who used to work in the office generally left the office by 11 pm pre-COVID.
Jefferies SF: Technology, much larger office. Deal flow is very solid, with a healthy mix of buy-side and sell-side sponsor and strategic M&A advisory, ECM, and some LevFin work. Exits are pretty good, with UMM exits being pretty common every year. The culture in the office is OK, most people are chill people but some associates and VPs are hardos, but hours are definitely much worse than Greenhill. Overall an underrated SF office that's been on the upwards trend over the past few years and is IMO on par with mid-BB bay area groups like Barclays, CS, and BofA in terms of analyst deal experience and exits (except for MF, which is doable but still less common than from the mid-BBs).
Moelis LA: Generalist M&A/RX, but very much oriented towards C&R and media & telecom, and also much more M&A than RX (NY handles most of the RX work). The office does also get some industrials and tech dealflow here and there, but it's definitely not very common. The culture in the office is pretty fratty, juniors are all very close and the people are pretty chill, but hours are still pretty bad, although no longer as brutal as they used to be. Exits are very good, with anything from MM to MF over the past few years, and MF is definitely the most doable from Moelis LA out of the three offices if that's what you care about.
If you purely care about exits with no regards for what type of work you do, go Moelis.
If you really want to do Tech and you're willing to give up the "prestige" of Moelis LA for work you find interesting, go Jefferies.
If you want a place where you can have a ride out a relatively chill 2 years and still get solid PE placement, go Greenhill.
You can't compare these groups. Leaving industry coverages aside, Moelis LA is a different beast. They're the top bank (and the largest with 80-90 something bankers) in LA and compares with groups like GS TMT. Jefferies SF is much smaller, but heard they have decent deal flow in the LMM space. Greenhill SF is a tiny, 8-man shop that mostly does HC/services deals that are way below $100mm. Your experience will also be vastly different. At Moelis LA, mostly live deal/execution with almost zero pitches, whereas at Jefferies SF and Greenhill, 90-95% of your time will be spent on putting together strip profiles and pitches.
Greenhill SF is a tiny shop that mostly does small HC deals. Jefferies SF fares okay in the Tech IB space but heard NY drives most headline deals including the latest Unity-IronSource deal. Moelis LA is huge so can't really compare with these smaller banks/offices.
If you're 100% sure you wanna do Tech IB go with Jefferies and then maybe lateral later. Being in SF will just make a lot of things easier.