Lincoln International - Middle market

What do you all know about them or what have you heard about them? I know they are middle market and in Chicago and New York.

38 Comments
 

they are expanding their LA office,too. I am interning there for spring. I heard their Chicago office is pretty decent.

 

quote from an analyst who just got laid off: "the partners themselves are running around trying to figure out what to do because there's no deals, nothing in the pipeline, no one is doing anything." Take that with the obvious grain of salt... but there is some obvious truth to that - there have been a lot of MM that have expanded greatly in the boom years that now have very little to do because the deals that do get done go to the more prestigious names like Lazard, Greenhill, HLHZ, William Blair (for a Chicago competitor), etc. Lincoln Partners is left to scrape the bottom and there's very little, if anything, to scrape at the moment.

 
youngmoneyquote from an analyst who just got laid off: "the partners themselves are running around trying to figure out what to do because there's no deals, nothing in the pipeline, no one is doing anything." Take that with the obvious grain of salt... but there is some obvious truth to that - there have been a lot of MM that have expanded greatly in the boom years that now have very little to do because the deals that do get done go to the more prestigious names like Lazard, Greenhill, HLHZ, William Blair (for a Chicago competitor), etc. Lincoln Partners is left to scrape the bottom and there's very little, if anything, to scrape at the moment.

Lazard, Greenhill don't pitch for the same deals as Lincoln. While there maybe some truth to the fact that there are not a lot of deals getting done, your comparisons are a bit off. HLHZ, HW and William Blair are true competitors for Lincoln. All these firms are not in the same league as Lazard and Greenhill.

 

Not a huge name but I had a couple of friends go there for their analyst stint and they had much better hours than typical IB and liked it a lot

 

I have to say, I loved the people at Lincoln in Chicago and I think it's a super solid shop. I ended up at a BB but had I received an offer from Lincoln I would've taken it purely for the people. I imagine NYC is the same.

"You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are." - Mister Rogers
 

Apparently like 95% + of their interns every year accept their return offers - pretty good for a MM bank Friend summered there and was raving about his experience and the culture

Exits are supposed to be very good as well - will probably not any MF PE since deal sizes are not similar at all but seems like they feed strongly into MM PE.

 
Best Response

While it seems like Lincoln has its heart in the right place, some of the Chicago office really put me off. During the lunches and pre-night dinner, I got the sense that things were not looking good. Many of the analysts talked about how a year ago, they were staffed on 2-3 deals at a time. Now, they were lucky to have one (some said they just put too many analysts on one deal). Of course, that's not very helpful, their deals are, as most have mentioned MM-focused, so they are not particularly intricate (just look at their tombstones. The deal sizes suggest no more than one analyst needed on any project).

Also got the sense Kate/Katie (point of contact for most interviews, believe she is an analyst), came off as very fake and rude throughout the process.

Again, decent shop. During the interviews they insisted the analysts go on to great PE shops and b-schools, almost selling that more than the deal team itself. Take that as you well.

Other notes:

  • in Chicago, you are assigned to a group of your choice, but the way the work breaks down, you will see a variety of industry deals. 70% of your group, 30% out
  • they have a work-abroad program where you can work in their European offices for 3-6 months, which seems cool enough

Hope that helps!

 

Well recognized institution with an international reach. While they don't carry precisely the same cache that HW&Co., Baird, Blair, or Jefferies does, they are very close behind. Don't think you'll go wrong if you're interested in the MM space.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

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