Oil and Gas Groups - Need Help

I've been working in M&A for about a year and I'm looking to lateral into Houston. I've networked with a handful of banks JPM, Jefferies, Houlihan and Lazard. Each I've gotten some decent feedback from and have been continuing talking with their team. I'm wondering if anyone has insight into these groups beyond just what some of these calls have been. Are the higher level MDs and VPs disconnected from their analyst, terrible exit opportunities, etc. Any insight would be really appreciated!

I'm focused on performing well with all of these banks but if you guys had to choose 1 or 2, which would be the best opportunity for long term banking and possibly for an exit opportunity into PE, corp dev, HF, etc.

14 Comments
 

Are you from TX / plan to stay there? The exits outside of energy/TX are tough and have gotten more difficult as infra firms do less and less work in traditional O&G.

Won't tell you not to move there, but I agree with the other comment that hours/culture across Houston are on average worse than NY groups. 

Personally unless I had family reasons to be in Texas, I would look to get into an infra group instead.

 
Most Helpful

Agreed. I’ve known and seen multiple people who’ve moved there thinking it’s a great long term opportunity but end up getting crushed under the culture or it’s not a fit for them. Then you have to take another job if you can’t get out of the city, which is hard because you’re pigeonholed into energy. That’s how people get stuck there.

 

Lazard is utterly irrelevant and only survives off its legacy EB name.

JPM is very strong. The best BB. Also has the tallest building in Houston. Probably has the best top to bottom exits.

JEF needs no intro. It is the analayst graveyard (mid bucket is logging 90+ weekly) but it’s the highest deal flowing. Big AN/AS classes. Solid exits.

Echoing other monkeys, O&G is a tough sell/questionable decision without TX ties or clear longer-term energy career goals.

 

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