Moelis London?
Have seen a lot of comments about EBs recently and think that PJT and PWP are well covered but I would love to get more detailed/updated information about Moelis' London office.
Any verified information about Moelis London's office, culture, average hours, analyst pay/bonus, class size, dealflow, and exit opps to vanilla PE/VC ?
Thanks !
Decent in Rx, bad in M&A. 10~ish analysts, pretty friendly. Exits mostly to debt stuff due to its RX focus
Look on MM, or even their website, they really don’t seem to come up much in EU M&A. Ive only once seen them on a deal.
In general, EB in London is quite different. Most of the US names don’t have a big presence (whether that is Moelis, PWP, Greenhill etc.), tbh would be interested to see a ranking somewhere.
From what I've gathered from working in London, there's a big gap in presence/reputation between PJT and EVR and the other US EBs. I know people who've taken them over JP and MS. In terms of analyst experience it seems like: EVR, PJT PWP, CVP, Laz, Roths Moelis, Greenhill
Other's thoughts?
I have 2 friends in the London team and know 1 other guy who quit, this is what they’ve all said:
On the M&A side it’s terrible, bad deal flow and deal sizes are small (if any). The London office pretty much piggybacks of the US and basically supports the US when needed. If you want m&a pretty much any other place would be better.
Really bad culture as well, both my friends there work very long hours and work most weekends, they do a lot of pitches for deals they don’t win. They also said most the people there are very arrogant Europeans who think they’re Patrick Bateman.
Exit ops are good only because of the US prestige that comes with it, with most recruiters not really understanding anything more than brand name, and also good for buyside roles which require RX experience - the guy I know that left joined blackstone focusing on distressed investments/special sits, he got this due to the restructuring experience he got at moelis.
So overall it’s a dead for m&a, but fairly ok for restructuring although still miles behind compared to Lazard / other EBs for RX
Pay is also very good all my friends got really good bonuses
Very decent Rx team, not great in M&A. Doesn't help that almost the entire office spent years on Aramco which let's be honest resulted in a massive disappointment for everyone involved.
Generally, the whole EB scene in Europe is not the same as in the US where firms like EVR or PJT get hyped massively (probably rightly so). However, most of those firms over here still get looks from the good funds (both PE and HF) and that's what counts, at least if you are not planning on being a career banker.
Pay is good at those shops, incl Moelis, and the guys I know / knew at MoCo were generally quite happy with hours and exposure. Got decent interviews, good bonuses and solid culture, not too bad overall if you work with the right ppl.
I also went down the EB route and ultimately had a similar experience with somewhat more dealflow but in the end want to caution you (both from personal experience and now from large cap PE perspective) that the Top BB route (GS, MS, JPM) is still the easier path to PE, at least in Europe/London.