Am I missing something or is Piper Sandler severely underrated on this site?
They’ve done more deals in the MM space than anyone in the past year, but I rarely see them compared with WB/Baird.
and no I do not work for them.
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It's right up there with those you name, totally group dependent as always. Blair & Baird for some reason have a fuckload of employees on WSO. I'm not sure what it is about those two midwest based banks, but they reallllllly like to try and differentiate themselves from other MM banks. Never head anyone else use the term "Upper" middle-market for IB, lol.
So yeah, Piper Sandler, Harris Williams, Houlihan, Cowen, JEF, Macquarie, RBC, RayJay etc. are all just as good. It's all the same shit. They're reputable MM focused banks. They all have certain groups that punch above their weight class, compete with BBs and win lots of large engagements while also having some middling so-so groups. That's middle-market IB for you, there's nothing special about Blair or Baird. Piper's Healthcare & FIG groups are their standouts. For Baird it's Industrials, Blair is Tech-Enabled (I think), Houlihan is RX, Harris Williams is sell-side M&A, so on so forth.
If you're comparing MM IB opportunities (or any IB opportunities) you really ought to do it through the lens of specific groups versus other groups instead of specific banks versus other banks. Everything is way more group / senior banker specific than it is bank specific.
Worked WB/Baird one of these and completely agree - basically every one of these banks has one sector they’re the leader in (Baird industrials, WB tech, Piper HC, etc) and the rest is all the same.
I think historically Blair and Baird were known to pay above street, have better culture, and treat employees better than their peers but i personally think all of that has changed in the past few years and I don’t think that either of them are at all differentiated anymore
Baird treating its employees well is so contrary to what I have heard from sooooooooooo many primary sources. I think you may be misinformed. It's a sweatshop. Especially in Industrials.
Op is absolutely right
Every MM has it's strong teams, from the European perspective, most American MM banks do considerably smaller deals than the US teams would do. Every MM has a 1-3 strong teams that punch above their weight and some that are middling and some that barely have any deal flow. From a company-wide perspective the best teams at MM banks would be:
Blair: Healthcare / Tech
Baird: Industrials
HW: Consumer, M&A
RayJay: Tech & Services / Consumer (previously Financo)
Piper Sandler: Chemicals (previously DBO) / FIG (Sandler O'Neill) / MedTech (arguably best on the street)
Lincoln: Healthcare / TMT
Stifel: KBW (FIG) / Tech
Cowen: Pharma?
Cantor: Healthcare / Trump Fundraising Team
Totally anecdotal but I have a buddy there in the Chi office and he absolutely loves the culture- plus is getting good deal flow and (according to him) relatively good bonuses. Their stats seem to be good recently, so yeah definitely on an upward trend. Recent acquisitions have really bolstered them.
Piper Sandler is stronger than both WB/Baird nowadays. Their recent inorganic growth has been insane I.e. DBO/Valence Group/TRS for tech/chemicals/RX. Like the first comment says, this site is filled with Blair and Baird bankers that are living in the 2000s. Would put Piper, houlihan, Jeff, RBC, Harris Williams, over both Blair and Baird.
As already mentioned, it depends on the group. No sense in speaking to absolutes. Piper is better in some coverage groups and subpar in others.
Can’t speak to their work. However, culture wise, everyone I met there has been a great guy that I’d be down to work with
Surprised to see RBC and JEF being lumped in here. Is this really the right comp set for them? Are they still similar to Piper/Houlihan/Baird/Blair/Harris Williams these days? Genuinely curious, don’t work at any of the firms above.
Nah, they don't belong in the same bucket. RBC probably never, JEF maybe a decade ago. Mentally segregate HL too really given their elite RX practice.
Completely different business models, broader product offerings, larger average transaction sizes. They're both more like pseudo-bulges with RBC leading with their lending ability and jefferies leading with levfin. They will win/lose mandates to bulges and EBs more than the traditional MM players
What defines the other guys is extreme focus on cranking out LMM to MM sellsides.
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