LA Investment Banking Scene?
There hasn't been a thread on this in a long time and was curious how things have changed.
I would assume MoCo generalist still remains the best group with HL RX LA the second, but I know nothing about any of the other BBs or EBs groups there.
Would love to hear your thoughts and insight.
Some quick comments in no particular order.. Happy to clean up and add more detail when I get back to my computer.
BBs
Credit Suisse (Gaming & Lodging + Sponsors)
BAML (Generalist - FIG, Media, EGRC, C&R)
Barclays (Sponsors + Consumer Retail)
MS (Consumer, FIG, Regal, others?)
GS (Consumer and Healthcare)
Citi (Metals and Mining Global HQ + Transportation)
EBs / Others
Moelis (Generalist; A lot of media)
Lazard (Mostly A&D but just added a new Video Game MD)
PWP (Industrials; Small office)
Rothschild (edit: consumer, tech M&A)
HL (RX and Biz Services M&A and TMT M&A; RX and M&A are distinct groups which recruit separately)
Lincoln International (Regional M&A; Great A&D MD as well)
Wells Fargo (Regional M&A)
Deloitte Corporate Finance
Raymond James
Ducera (RX)
You can’t go wrong with any shops in LA. In order to support the office, they need to have strong MDs. However the major differentiation in your experience will be based on a few factors 1) size of the office 2) If the office is a Satellite or an HQ/Quasi-HQ 3) Industry Focus 4) Office Location (Downtown or Century City; may be biased but Century city is far better IMO)
Source: I’m an Associate in LA
Yes, still one of the top on the Street. A quick LinkedIn search would show that their recent exits are Centerbridge, KKR, Apollo, Warburg, Ares, LGP, Advent, Oaktree, Levine, Newlight, Brentwood, Marlin, Levine, Bx, CapitalG, Silver Lake, Cerberus…
Your 'recent' exits include historical exits dating back to 2013. I personally know a few of them as we were close friends from the same target school (think it's pretty self explanatory where we went) and they would've landed at these shops regardless of where they banked. I'm going to get a ton of MS because college freshman and high school seniors love Moelis but frankly, I think the quality of exits + analysts have fallen off in the past 3 years with a good chunk of analysts going to random MMs in T3 cities (Do a LinkedIn search before arguing with me) The Wharton kids who land at Centerbridge would have ended up there regardless of where they did their analyst stint. Despite my title, I do associate recruiting for my NY-based MF/UMM PE fund and we bucket Moelis LA along with the other independent advisory shops + BBs - no special preference. Don't get me wrong, you'll do well if you go to MoCo, but I don't think you'll do any worse by going to any other firm. Quality of exit is completely dependent on you as a person and not on where you spent the past 3 months of your analyst stint
What do you mean..? Even except Centerbridge and Silver Lake NewLight, Advent, Marlin, Oaktree, Apollo, Cerberus, and more are recent exits from 2018 and after..
Recent exits for CS LA include Silver lake, Warburg, Genstar, LGP, Ares, Clearlake, Francisco. essentially all analysts who want to exit to PE get a gig
Know this analyst as well and know others with bad experiences being interviewed by him.
To person who we were discussing, “Economist in PE”, thanks for DMing me. the reason CS LA has a high acceptance rate is because they take UC kids, BYU/Utah kids or random Asian girls that wanna be close to home and don’t even understand what IB is when they apply via diversity.
You are not getting top talent so naturally you’ll have a high acceptance rate. I literally turned down an offer so not sure why you’re touting this to brag, since you’re clearly the person who.
“Private Equity in LA is competitive”. No shit it will be for non target kids who go to a satellite office and only do casino advisory. I can confirm that the person you are referring to, who took an extra year at a sweatshop because he couldn’t land ANYTHING (was struggling at mediocre MM shops), did not get a “top offer”. Thanks for taking the time to DM me 5 paragraphs and congrats on somehow getting out of IB
I don’t know what you think you know, but it’s been a while since I’ve heard such misguided garbage. CSLA is consistently one of the most profitable groups on a per capita basis across the bank. If the group really had talent issues and the work wasn’t applicable, they wouldn’t be sending people to SLP, FP, Warburg etc. year after year after year. I’m sorry your misguidance caused you to turn down the opportunity (tbh, I agree with the above that you likely did not get an offer), and I’m sorry that your near-term earnings prospects and exit opportunities will suffer as a result of that. I’ve said my piece and I’m done indulging banking interns.
No idea who these analysts are, but a friend did his summer at Barclays and after speaking with him, this pretty misleading imo. Most of the good exits are backloaded and aren’t flagship HQ funds. The caliber of kids going from there used to be higher than it is now, and they would’ve exited to those shops no matter the bank. I’d say it’s about the 5th best shop in LA. Wont comment on culture but I have heard it’s sweaty (doesn’t mean culture is bad but they have had a semi-exodus of A1s this past year).
Thanks for spouting complete nonsense & misinformation. Out of Silver lake, Warburg, Genstar, LGP, Ares, Clearlake, Francisco (all exits within the past 3 years with a class of 5 per year), pls name which ones aren't flagship. Should be easy, since you say that "most" aren't. Pls also name the 4 stronger banks and tell us exactly what exits they've had in the past 3 years. Sounds like your "friend" at Barclays is upset they had a couple strong exits due to Ivey kids (aka, what it truly means to have exits based on the caliber of kids vs the group) and have had average exits since.