65 Comments
 

Overall or tech group specifically?

Overall I give the edge to Baird, people on this website seem split on Jefferies in terms of where it plays, but I think it's just a touch below the top MM of Blair/Baird. If culture matters then Baird hands down.

In terms of tech group though, Jefferies appears to have an edge depending on your interest. Baird will have more tech/biz services focus.

 

I was talking about overall, but it's interesting you gave the edge to Baird. I always thought Jefferies is the best MM shop along with HL.

 
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This is totally inaccurate and not sure what school you went to but a quick LinkedIn search will show Jefferies consistently places analysts to MF PE particularly out of healthcare energy and M&A and UMM PE out of all other groups far stronger than Blair/Baird. Jefferies average deal size is way larger than any other MM and tons of those deals are above 1 billion. Literally know people at Blair and Baird that consistently work on 100-200MM sell sides and anytime they score a mandate above a billion they are never the sole advisor or lead on the deal. Jefferies is in a tier of its own in the MM and doesn’t even really compete with other MM banks (group depending) besides of course RBC. JEFs primary competitors are the UBSs and CSs of the world.

 

I got to interview for a few tech IB teams last year since that was of focus at the time (Barclays, BofA, Jefferies, RBC, etc.) including Jefferies.

Interviews went well, but they had some odd personalities at different levels. Met 8 people in a Super Day, and though VPs seemed phenomenal the MDs seemed to be very old school while the Associates were either massive chip on the shoulder, difficult to work with personalities and/or massive hardos. Would say it would fit very particular personalities incredibly well but not for all.

 

I have a college buddy of mine who worked in that office. This is straight false news lmfao. I know the MD's in that group that came over from CS.

 

TLDR: I know I started ranting a bit, but the takeaway is that JEF is a great bank to lateral into from a non-traditional background or smaller bank, but get out as fast as you can while still scoring a really nice exit. 
 

Need to correct a few things in the thread:
- SF Tech: does M&A in-house, but occasionally outsources to the NYC M&A team, or pulls on a Tech M&A resource or two from NYC. I think this is best of both worlds because I personally think M&A is overrated and Tech coverage work is much more interesting. You will get enough Tech industry experience and M&A modeling/process experience over 1.5-2 years to make a nice exit to a tech buyside firm if you are pretty good.

- NYC Tech: Pretty similar to SF Tech in every way, but there is a slightly more defined Tech M&A sub-practice. I also think hours in this group are a bit worse than SF, mostly because of the time zone difference (ex: say SF MD gives last comments at 12pm which is 3am ET) and the culture of NYC banking is just more intense and formal anyways. 
- Exits: obviously not a good as Q, most of the BBs, or the top boutique banks, but surprisingly solid. Think Tech MM/UMM, a lot of Tech growth equity, some VC, and nice Tech Corp Dev/Corp Strat roles. There’s a few non-tech buyside exits too. You can do an easy LinkedIn search to find out what exact firms people have placed at. 
- Clawbacks: don’t worry about this at the analyst level, they don’t exist. Know what you’re getting into at the associate level. 
- Culture: Tough to stay how much worse it is than other banks, but it has gotten just insane over there. JEF is growing quickly and staffing needs are not catching up with the dealflow. Multiple analysts across SF and NYC are quitting, lateraling, and exiting mid-year and forgoing bonuses (but they’re placing pretty well). At the worst, it’s 130 hour work weeks on SPAC deals. Senior team is aware of how bad it’s getting, but just not reacting. Rich Handler is a PR figurehead and his social media portrayal of the firm is frankly insulting and manipulative. There are some really, really great senior guys there, and the Asso/Anl level is pretty tight, but man, there are some straight-up soulless, vapid husks in the senior ranks. Don’t do banking for more than 2 years, guys, especially at Jefferies. I will say it is a solid place to lateral into, and exit out of, but it will crush you.
- Other groups: Healthcare is even worse, no joke. But it’s a very impressive team, very old school banking. Industrials is probably just as bad as Tech. Consumer has some great exits and slightly better hours/culture.   

 

Is it true that the tech buyside placements coming from sf are significantly better than nyc? I’ve never seen any guys on nyc place at Francisco Partners / GTCR / FFL / Marlin Equity Partners but see sf guys placing at these UMM firms. I’ve talked to a few nyc tech guys, and they all seem to struggle in comparison to the sf guys in terms of receiving the same level of exits. Not sure if this is a selective bias in that the kids who go to sf tend to be hardcore about tech and thus place better into tech buyout funds

 

Yeah I'm actually puzzled by what Rich wants to accomplish by commenting all the time on instagram.

Interestingly, the time resources dedicated to spac deals across the street based on conversations with management across the spectrum of banks has been just 110%+ given the fee opportunity offered. This has started to become a warning sign internally at banks given bankers are diverting attention when presented the opportunity to bank SPACs vs other traditional banking products. Lets see where it goes..

 

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