Lateralling from MM to BB
I have an offer from a decent MM IB in London, specialising in infrastructure deals. They have good deal volume, good rankings, and good reputation. They have more engagements starting from this year so they are recruiting outside of their typical cycle. I have an offer to join as Analyst 1 (despite not having that much experience). While this bank is overall good and gives me exposure to deals in London, I'm sceptical about its long-term prospects. As far as I can see, very many exits to PE, none to HF. I'm just wondering, in this environment, how does lateralling look like? Spending 1-2 yrs will hopefully give me deal experience, but then I'm not sure how the economy will look like, or how open BBs will be for lateralling. Any advice?
Anybody?
Normally it's extremely difficult. There's a bigger assortment of bankers from tier 2 BBs and EBs who are disgruntled, enough to feed openings at top BBs. When tier 2 banks are doing well you can see it's almost impossible to compete with their bankers. Coming from MMs is a disadvantage overall.
However, if you're really sure about this bank and its deal volume, there's still a chance. Tier 2 banks and EBs are a shitshow at the moment. They're struggling atrociously and deal volumes are super down. There is a chance, but it's still extremely difficult.
This is pretty inaccurate across the board
How?
Agree with the other response - I think I disagree with every point. Most laterals I've seen are to significantly uptier their brand with well known MM -> BB/EB being the most common if anything. People in the real world are not so granular with their rankings as on WSO. Moving from a good group at a "Tier 2" BB to a "Tier 1" BB is most of the time not worth it to give up the goodwill and reputation built at the former to start over at the latter. Anecdotally have never seen someone go EB -> BB either but have seen the other way usually for comp potential. Also disagree with the second point, EBs are faring significantly better than BBs these days as capital market divisions severely hurt the BBs while EBs have restructuring to ease the M&A blow.
Agreed, other response is entirely wrong. At a BB now and almost all of our laterals have come from MM banks or even outside of traditional IB. Typically when people leave BBs or EBs (especially at the junior level) they are leaving banking entirely. They are not looking to jump to what will essentially be the exact same job unless they have been laid off or have a unique circumstance.
In this environment you might see more layoff candidates from other BBs or EBs, but that hasn’t been the norm for at least 4 years.
Also, EBs have absolutely dominated BBs performance wise across the board and that isn’t really up for debate.
How common are laterals from a middling MM like a RBC/HSBC/Truist to a top BB or an EB? I know it’s a stupid question but was considering if I’d have to lateral to get access to certain opportunities and I feel like I almost never see people from my middling MM lateral to a top BB or an EB when I search on LinkedIn
I'm shocked the ECM intern had a completely uneducated opinion
Not shocked that another WSO snob is attacking someone's title as opposed to adding anything meaningful... sigh
Did the ECM intern get it that wrong though? It's exaggerated yes absolutely. But he has a point imho.
MM > BB was abundant in 2020-2022 but prior to that, pretty tough
Thank you for your sage advice wise intern Ecm
Wrong on everything. Please stop posting if you don't know the facts.
I know a lot of people at JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley in London who started their careers at MM or low tier banks such as RBC, BNP, Societe Genérale, William Blair, HSBC or Santander and managed to lateral to top BB as A2/3 or ASO level.
Nice way of saying DC Advisory (I probably interviewed you if it you are indeed describing dc advisory)
OP, is this DC?
If it is, would you mind DMing me to chat a bit?
Says London in the post
Yeah? They have an office there...
Hilarious comment section ngl 💀
Someone brought up a good point, how common was MM -> BB/EB/Good boutique before 2020?
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