Most elite/secretive/hardest-to-break-into groups? Like BX Tactical Ops or GS SSG
What are the most elite/secretive/hardest-to-break-into groups?
I'm just curious.
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The Goldman Sach
haha good one
PTG Capital
I'm including both sell and buyside for post-college opportunities.
GS TMT GS FIG MS M&A CS Leveraged Finance GS SSG Blackstone PE Blackstone restructuring Bain Capital Sankaty Silver Lake Partners PE Apollo PE
Guy who definitely worked at CS Lev Fin. Some egregious CS trolling there
Lol well said.
CS Lev Fin is not that difficult to get into. CS .
Wells Fargo TMT > GS TMT. Get with the times dude.
I second PTG
whats the hardest front office position to get into? (Originally Posted: 09/16/2007)
please rank them in terms of difficulty....IB / S&T / Asset Management ....is asset management easier to get into then the other 2? .. thanks
secretary to lloyd blankfein
I think IB is the generally speaking, the most prestigious. That's really open to debate.
That aside, if you are an undergraduate who's only experience is finance classes. IB is the easiest, but most competitive to get into too. (You dont need much, because your not expected to know much. However, tons of kids are applying)
S&T and asset management is a toss-up. On the one hand, S&T gives desk-specific offers. What that means is that some bank might have 35 trading desks specializing in specific industries and/or securities. These desk may also be categorized in prop/non-prop trading. There might be only one seat on a given desk and you might not have the skill set to even be less than a burden on your team. Consequently, it might be extremely difficult to land a job in say....synthetic products, if you cant do the swop math, build macros, or understand the greeks.
On the other hand, don't sleep on asset management. While this division house private wealth management perhaps easier to get into, you have to consider the special situation groups, internal hedge funds, BB private equity, and merchant banking groups. If your thinking about applying to these groups as undergrad, you might find yourself in a applicant pool with better-seasoned 3rd yr. analyst mobility candidates.....I hope you know somebody, or are just a super star. I don't think that presidency of the university equities society is going to get you very far in this interview.
"On the one hand, S&T gives desk-specific offers. "
Most offers are generalist actually.
Depends on the bank Jimbo
I know. Most banks hire mostly generalist analysts.
Nice list Brady, I think you forgot a few
Any IB group in Houston or the South.
Is this sarcasm?
Nice USF logo in your profile pic. Now I know your shit answer isn't sarcasm
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or just plain wrong BUT there are a few "clique"-y groups down here... there's one which only hires guys from a particular frat at a particular college.
... He said, referring to Barclays.
Sankaty is actually easier to get into than you think
Easier compared to what? Sankaty pretty much hires top econ undergrads from Harvard and maybe a few from Wharton. That's pretty damm selective. Is it more selective than Blackstone PE, apollo, tpg, KKR? Probably not, but that's an uber selective group we're talking about.
Where do you get this information from? Sankaty recruits full time on campus at Princeton, Harvard, Wharton, Dartmouth, and Yale. Those I know for sure, and I would be willing to bet that they hire full time from other places as well. The Harvard/Wharton circlejerk is getting a little out of control around this website from a couple people. People say here that you can never go to top buyside shops straight from undergrad unless you are at H/W, then you see people at almost all Mega Funds recruiting straight from undergrad who were at Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, Wharton, Harvard on Linkedin. I don't go to Harvard or Wharton and there are a ton of top buyside places that recruit directly from here. I'm willing to bet that those aren't the only campuses. The misinformation around here is ridiculous.
the "elite" tag made me shit myself
CIA Special Activities Division
Haha, I know what you're talking about. Some squirrel unit shit
Jeffries "the towel boy" squad
thanks guys I'm going to apply for the PTG analyst programme
What makes a group 'secretive'?
I suppose it could be those groups which are very small in terms of the number of people and so not much information is known about them as a very small number of people actually have first hand knowledge of how they operate.. alternatively it could be groups which are secretive due to the nature of the work, perhaps certain hedge fund groups/strategies?
You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think there's some group equivalent of black ops or special forces
Seal Team 6
Allen & Company
qatalyst ms menlo Centerview Partners
Good ones. Totally forgot that centerview recruits at undergrad.
How does MS tech menlo compare to other top banking groups?
For PE, megafunds are generally more selective as very few people interviewing for PE are going to turn down a MF offer.
Apollo and BX PE hire the fewest from banking. BX because they also take analysts out of college, Apollo because they underhire for whatever reason (~3-5 PE associates/year) so deal teams are super lean and you will get crushed. I was told they were 5 for 5 again this past year so looks like there are still enough masochists out there.
Carlyle and TPG both take 10 or more associates a year, but still very competitive if you consider the literally hundreds of banking analysts who want a job there. I think Carlyle is usually 2 per industry group, and you can interview with multiple groups. TPG I heard has lost a few associates to other MFs these past few cycles.
.
Illuminati. New York and London offices are relatively easy to get into (they take 1-2 kids from Yale's S&B a year) but the Miami office apparently only takes one kid every 75-76 years (when the Halley's Comet is visible).
2-part follow up: Do analysts in Special Situations groups get issued sidearms? Also, who makes more elite guns: H&K or Sig Sauer?
Facetiousness aside, H&K. Best of European gunmakers besides the perfection that is Glock. They have a more expansive and versatile product line beyond sidearms than Glock, which makes them fun to party with.
(H&K is a distressed credit)
As an avid gun nut, this made me die a little inside.
Dude you nearly made me burst out in laughter in my cubicle.
any info on BX tactical?
How intelligent are the people? Is this a popular group within BX?
BX Tac Ops doesn't pay particularly well. I was shocked by how little their mid level / sr guys get paid. Obviously, David Blitzer does well, but it was really disappointing to hear hwo some of the others were doing. Fees must be low and returns are just ok.
what's "not particularly well"? banking pay? or less than 7 figures?
any input on this for Europe ?
You'd also be surprised by some of the boutiques out there. For example, the one that ran the Disney/LucasFilm deal wasn't one of the firms or groups that people on this forum love to wank to.
What, Guggenheim? They're certainly up there, aren't they? Not like we're talking about some 5-man regional shop...
hi guys, what about Elliott Management or Cerberus Capital Management?
RenTech /
End of discussion
RenTech is a quant fund, not an IB group.
Yes I know it is, but the previous discussion has defacto descended into a discussion about the hardest group to get into across buy and sellside. Some of the firms mentioned above: GS SSG /Elliot Management / Cereberus / A bunch of PE groups.
None of these places have anything on the guys from RenTech. Hands down the most elite place on wallstreet.
I've heard Lehman Bros hasn't taken new hires in years...
What about some of the securities-investing areas of GS? PFI, PSI, etc.?
Axe Capital?
They're going through some speed bumps at axe. A couple PMs recently walked out to start their own fund. Hopefully the DA backs off soon.
But where the fuck is Donnie?
I have literally been scrolling down hoping i could throw this one out there kudos for beating me to the punch [no SBs to give sadly] Bobby Axelrod forever.
Australia: Your definition of secret and successful - "Portland House Group" Family Office/FoF - http://www.afr.com/it-pro/investment-secrets-of-billionaire-david-hains… Picked Soros, Jim Simmons and LTCM before they were big.
APAC: Guys thoughts on principal investing in banks? (I know Distressed Products Group/Strategic Principal investments at DB seems to be interesting/relativley unknown?)
Quant shops like Renaissance. Also the strats group at Goldman: https://www.quantnet.com/threads/what-does-it-take-to-get-hired-by-gold…
Bridger Capital
Secret? Like Skull 'n Bones / New World Order or some shit? Doesn't exactly work like that dude, at least as far as I know.
Generally the door into getting these top IBD and PE seats is, historically, pretty clear-cut. These firms / funds in many ways are like exclusive clubs were they prefer to recruit from their "own".
This isn't always the case, however, "outsiders" do break-in with a bit of luck and being in the right place at right time. I know a guy who's become a friend of mine who was able to get in as an associate with Riverstone, which traditionally is a very white-shoe type of shop, coming from a lower ranked BB and graduated from a large Big-12 state school. He had just happened to crush it on a deal as an IBD analyst Riverstone had engaged his group for and performed the best on the case study / modeling test. By his own candid admission, he got "pretty lucky".
The really tough place to get to, were the path to getting a seat is most difficult and opaque is with the top hedge funds. I've had zero success getting too far with those cats even with a solid IBD+PE background in roles where my deal experience was a dead-ringer match for. From my POV, HF PM's and full analysts are very tough dudes to impress.
I know of a couple:
Bank of America Consumer Banking LTCM Bond Arbitrage DBL High-Yield Bonds DPK Reconnaissance General Bureau Foxconn Special Technologies
Id like to start an informal poll- how many of you jack it to "prestige"? I'm guessing its going to be in the neighborhood of 73.46%.
Bohemian Grove
Net Worth North of 1 Billion
Bessemer
Super Secret Capital Partners
OH I've never heard of them!
Also, CA suxxx!
South Sea Company
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