Jefferies vs. Harris Williams. Interested in everyone's thoughts for the 2 year analyst stint. How would they compare for pay, deal flow, prestige, exit opps to PE as well as other careers, exit opps to business school, culture, etc?
Obviously Jefferies has the advantage (or disadvantage, considering cost of living) of primarily being located in NYC. Other than that, how would you rank them?
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jefferies
I don't think there's any real comparison...Jefferies.
Definitely no comparison - HW. Exit opps are better, more exposure to senior guys, exclusive focus on M&A.
would you like working in the south (richmond)?? its a nice city if you can like small cities. hw is legit, they proudly show off on their site all of the people they have placed at PE shops. they also place at megafunds occasionally, know a guy at carlyle that did his analyst stint at hw
carlyle dude doesnt work in an investing role
harris williams is legit.
Would opinions change if I was speaking about the Boston office of HW? It focuses primarily on tech deals. It is significantly smaller.
They just hired a rainmaker from sagent. Also,I would say HW in most cases over JEF, but there are some great groups at JEF that might give you some better or equal opps to HW (lev fin, energy).
Who's the sagent guy?
mike wilkens..not sure if he is in boston since he was based out of sf for sagent
There's a tradeoff between exposure / brand name and deal experience. I'd say deal experience is a crapshoot across the board unless you're at some of the premier M&A bulges and boutiques. Go with Jefferies... they are swinging for the fences and working on large transactions. As a whole, JEF is going upmarket right now (if you asked me a year ago, I wouldn't say this, but just do a quick search...how many UBS people have they hired in the past few months?).
You have an option, so don't start out your career doing $50mm sellsides. The choice gets even easier when you factor in NYC vs. Richmond, Philly, and what, Minneapolis?
And come on people... stop arguing over 1 guy who went to KKR Carlylestone Pincus Partners. You're missing the forest for the trees (quit trying to find the exception and focus on the bigger picture, b/c MM guys do not go to megafunds and you will NOT be the exception)
The question you should answer is whether or not you want to build your career in the large cap market or the middle market. Jefferies offers the opportunity to work on large cap deals, albeit at a lower tier shop within those that work on large cap deals. Harris Williams restricts you to the middle market, though you'll be at one of the best names in the MM M&A industry.
jefferies has moved up in the market - doing bigger deals. i think compbanker put it nicely. at jefferies, you'll be working on larger deals but at a lower tier shop. HW is strictly in the middle market, but they are the at the top tier in their space. i know plenty of ex analysts from both banks that are at very good MM PE firms, so you cant go wrong
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