Laz London/UK compared to other EBs
Seen a lot of posts saying Laz are going through a turbulent time but they’re currently top of the EB’s in the UK according to refinitiv? Would be interesting to hear where this opinion has come from and whether they’re going to drop further going forward. Moreover it would be good to understand how everyone thinks they rank vs other EB’s in London.
Thanks in advance
Laz London's inferiority complex needs to be studied.
They fired their HR team. They didn’t convert many summer interns recently. They hire weak placement interns. France and Germany continues to dominate their M&A. Most their deals are in Euros not GBP - should tell you something.
No offence to the placement interns, but take a look at their profiles. They also used to hire majority of their summer interns from spring weeks as well which obviously was not the right strategy (hence the terrible summer to FT conversion rate).
I work at Lazard... not sure about that first statement lol
Hi there, could you please pm me? Incoming summer at Laz and had a few questions
Getting worse by the year, when it was once the best boutique in London 5-10 years ago. Legacy dealflow mostly from Europe as mentioned below, some good British flow here and there. Lots of senior churns.
Rothschild now best in London for dealflow (MM focused), CVP getting very strong in the large cap space, EVR good established position in large cap and MM. rest of the boutiques not as established yet. PJT some good deals here and there.
Lazard is just going downhill whilst the others are in a good position. Exits basically none. Boutiques mentioned above have decent exits, especially PJT and EVR
Quite surprising to see BofA 10th and Barclays 12th for EMEA
Can someone share the full ranking? Curious. Top 15 would be great
Per refin YTD where advisor rs for buy or sell side is UK based:
GS MS UBS Barc JPM Citi BofA Laz BNP Centerview DB EVR Wells Fargo Roths PJT Jeffries RBC
Saw something similar on Dealogic. These types of questions always pop up in the UK forum whenever an EB has good numbers in a particular year. Will ignore rothschild for now, simply because they just churn out a ton of MM deals and if using that logic, then HL would also be in the conversation for a top M&A EB. But just look at Laz, 5th in emea this year, 9th last year. Would it make sense to choose Laz over BAML or Citi since they outperformed in deals in 1 year, absolutely not. If it was for the last 5 years then maybe the argument could be made, but even still the exits are miles apart for BAML/Citi compared to Lazard. According to the league tables, JPM has a better M&A practice than MS in EMEA but ask anyone in the industry or just look at the difference in exits and you would see this is not the case (Again, not as much of a difference as say a BAML vs Lazard). EVR and PJT definitely do have more momentum than Lazard but their European M&A franchise is not at the same scale. All of these banks are simply decent at M&A, with PJT and HL being excellent at RX. There is no clear-cut 'Top EB's' and its been that way for a few years now. Whereas there are defined top Banks and those are your top 5 BB's.
So for FT, the consensus is still Brand > Deal experience?
Speaking for Boutiques, a struggling EB like LAZ is still superior to a well performing non-EB like Jefferies or HL?
Lazard is struggling, and a major factor seems to be the quality of juniors they hire. Year after year, they convert entire classes of spring interns who lack even the most fundamental knowledge, many can’t even name the three financial statements. Converting spring interns isn’t inherently a problem, most banks, including all levels of BBs (MS,JPM,DB,BofA), convert a good number of springs, who meet a baseline standard of quality of intern. However, as someone who completed a Lazard spring a few years ago, seeing the caliber of people they’re now converting is shocking.
From conversations with people working there, the quality of interns and placements has progressively declined. Conversion rates are dismal, and those who do get through seem to be judged more on likeability than competence. For example, isn’t the LSE student known for his “9 spring weeks” achievement and corny tutorial videos doing a summer there this year? No disrespect to him, but the fact that Lazard was his sole conversion says a lot about their current standard.
To make matters worse, the firm’s exit opportunities are generally lackluster, with only a few exceptions leading to rare buy-side placements. The trend isn’t unique to Lazard either, Jefferies seems to be following a similar trajectory. According to an AN1 I know there, the Spring interns they converted this year were assessed only on basic competency questions, with no case studies or technical evaluations involved.
The takeaway is clear: if you have the opportunity, choose another EB or any BB over Lazard’s London office. This is different for other EU offices tho
Did both Laz (and another EB) and one of MS/GS spring conversion ACs a few years ago. Can attest to how shockingly simple Lazard was, the case Study for the BB one still haunts me to this day.
Actually serious EBs (i.e. PJT/EVR) are giving paper LBOs in spring conversion ACs whereas lazard are barely asking to run through valuation methods. The talent gap is crazy.
Laz is now moving away from converting as many people from spring -> summer -> grad as shown by the lower summer conversion % this year and applications for the summer internship opening for the first time in a while this year. Hopefully better talent follows.
Upvoted. I was an intern this year at Lazard, and can attest to everything that’s being said on this thread.
Anecdotally just would like to clarify a few things. The spring conversions are 75% of the junior story, the other 25% is that Lazard does hire laterals (An2+) but doesn’t consider other BBs/EBs or banks or many Europeans - nope, they look to PwC/etc for Brits and those that studied at British universities “within degrees that require lateral thinking”. Not saying this is bad by any means and I value diversity, but it really has a material impact when your assoc is from Structuring at (Big 4) v a person who’s ran a successful M&A track before with a difficult sponsor. Even the new guys they’re hiring for their “new” SA/FT pipeline is more of the same… holding nothing against these guys as they haven’t had a chance to prove themselves, but culturally I don’t think anything is going to change anytime soon
LOL 9 sw dude always catching strays on this site...
He deffo sees these and stopped posting
I don't think anyone from a BB is considering a laz lateral, no offence. I'm at one of MS/GS/JPM and only EB that i'd consider would be CVP.
Don't get me started on that, oh my. There was a whole thread on him ages ago lol and that went pretty mental.
I felt bad for him but his videos did not even help his argument because it was awful af!
Where is this thread I want to read it lmao
Agreed, spring conversions need more case studies and technical evaluations. Loads of spring interns that converted to summer walk into their summers with hardly enough technical knowledge due to not having the pressure of studying technicals for summer recruitment!
Out of interest, would you guys take a place at a DB/UBS calibre BB in London over Laz in the current market?
Yes unless you have an offer with one of the worst groups at UBS/DB or a niche one (FIG, RE, etc.). Only in that case it could make sense to consider Laz
The above commenter definitely went a bit too far lol. I would still consider Laz to be above European BBs
Definitely, only would take laz if I was in a great team and the other options are at the worst and niche groups of DB/UBS.
Reprehenderit dolor modi mollitia sed cumque dolorum. Aperiam cupiditate accusantium rerum est dignissimos dolor. Aperiam et eligendi dolore cumque aut nulla eius.
Velit id repudiandae iure cupiditate aut. Magnam sed impedit eius repudiandae sed eum reprehenderit. Sequi nihil ullam ex dolor. Perferendis natus sint alias impedit qui atque ut architecto. Dolore et ex id itaque velit. Libero corrupti dolorem fugit et soluta vero.
Modi facere repellendus eos aut minus cum numquam. Aliquid ut voluptatem dignissimos veniam occaecati eum. Sed odio et odio est dolores nihil quae rerum.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Aspernatur voluptatum vel harum culpa iure aut ut. Error et consequatur eos quos. Quas enim dicta esse libero qui suscipit ad. Illo ut molestiae qui labore. Repudiandae alias labore aut ut. Minus ea ipsa et repellendus consequatur eveniet voluptas. Ad libero aut delectus est nesciunt cupiditate sequi.