PJT vs Evercore (London)
Hi,
I am privileged to be in the position where I have outstanding offers from PJT and Evercore in London, for summer analyst 2021.
I was wondering what are the pros and cons of each, in terms of “prestige”, training and how much actual experience you get, Exit opps (to PE/hedge funds), and any other points that are worth mentioning. If someone has experience in both these banks, please shoot me a PM and I would love to have a quick chat about it.
thanks
Hey - when did you do the AC and get the offer from PJT? Appreciate the insight
AC was on Thursday. Got the offer the next day. Their class is essentially filled up, I think they are having one more round of interviews just in case they want to take one or two more people.
Had mine on Friday. Do you know if everyone who did it on Thursday heard back on Friday?
First congrats!
I’d go for PJT because their restructuring team is really strong also in EU.
Evercore, as much as it’s prestigious in the US, isn’t that strong in EU (would say its middle market and nothing more)
Totally different story if you wanna try to move in US then I’d go for Evercore without thinking, personally I don’t know if it’s doable.
Why don’t you think its doable to move to the US?
Genuinely I don’t know if it’s double or not
hadn’t work at Evercore. I’m in a completely different situation atm.
For sure would go with PJT: better culture, better dealflow if interested in RX and better pay if you want to stay for the long haul
Biggest advice would be to not listen to any posts on here discussing this topic from a US perspective. Very different story in EMEA.
PJT in London is very respected with high pay and good culture (although hours at times can be rough). Yet, you really need to ensure that you want to a) work on RX deals (for which they are #1 in EMEA) and b) would be open to special sits/debt exits. PJT M&A is not really a consistently strong franchise, particularly in London, the deal flow is subpar putting you at a bit of a disadvantage when going for vanilla PE exits. HF/SS and Private Debt will definitely be much more common.
Evercore London is very different than in the US, being more mid-market-focused and lacking the large-cap deal flow it has in the US -> more Jefferies/Houlihan Lokey than Lazard. As a result, your exits will be mostly confined to MM PE where, admittedly, Evercore does seem to place quite consistently. Additionally, I would argue that based on people I have talked to the quality of people at Evercore is not always as top-notch as you would imagine.
In summary:
Pay: PJT > Evercore
Culture: No clear answer
Deal Flow/Learning: PJT much better if you like RX, for M&A: Evercore with more consistent mid-market deal flow, PJT with rare large-cap deal flow
Reputation/Quality of People: PJT > Evercore
Exits: PJT much better for HF/SS/Private Debt, Evercore maybe with more track record in MM PE
Thank you, this is extremely helpful. Very good advice to ignore the US discussions, I have also heard it’s very different. I have made my decision for PJT, in light of the people I’ve spoken to and other factors, but this comment has confirmed some of the drivers behind my decision and leaves me confident I made the right choice.
Where would you place PJT/Evercore among BBs in terms of exit opps in London?
Personal opinion for M&A:
- Both PJT & Evercore in line with UBS, maybe a little bit behind
But if you take into account pay, other exit opps (to distressed, SS, HF...) I would place them close to CS (if you are interested in Rx things change a lot tho)
Evercore would probably be at a UBS/DB level in terms of exit opps, depending on the specific group.
PJT is more difficult to place since the RX and M&A franchises are so different. If you are only looking for LBO PE exits, PJT would probably be more on a Barclays level (maybe Citi), however, note that it seems a lot more random with PJT meaning that some top tier funds are actively looking for PJT because they know that their recruiting process is quite competitive.
In terms of other exits, they are absolutely top tier (up there with GS) for everything SS and Distressed and similar to strong LevFin teams for Private Debt. For Equity HFs, there doesn't seem to be a lot of track record so far.
Completely agree, Evercore’s london office focuses on MM and LMM, they rarely touch UMM / Large cap.
Regarding the point about questionable/underperforming analysts I also agree. I’ve worked with a few girl analysts from Evercore London’s office on projects and they are awful, not sure what is going on with their recruitment process but to me this says everything.. jheeze the work they did was awful, full of basic mistakes and always asking stupid questions.
There is one key word in your reply, I really can't tell which it is...
.
Stop spreading misinformation. They were ranked 6th last year in EMEA, just below Citi, with an average transaction value of around €3bn.
You are right that they can go to the MM territory depending on teams (some are growing) but saying they dont do large-cap deals in London is nonsense. Strongest groups have poached MDs from top US BB and have solid dealflow. Dont know about their girl analysts though...
Definitely got rejected from EVR
The London healthcare team just announced the largest healthcare deal in 2020. "rarely touch" doesn't really seem accurate.
How is HL rx compared to them in London?
Bump - thoughts on PJT london?
I'll offer a different perspective. I do agree with a lot that has been posted above - from both firms you should be able to broadly exit anywhere with obvious differences in very niche areas ie SS if not doing Rx at Evercore. Now here's my take on it and what you should consider in no particular order:
1) M&A (Evercore) vs M&A and RX (PJT) - is Rx of interest to you? PJT does a large cap M&A deal here and there but most of your time will be spent on Rx.
2) Generalist (PJT) vs Teams model (Evercore) - are you specifically keen on one sector in which you'd want to specialize? ie Evercore is quite active in the MM+ tech space, at PJT given the focus on Rx you will deal quite a bit with less sexy industries and on the M&A side they were decent in HC too.
3) deal size and flow - Evercore does smaller deals but closes more on a number basis. Also consider with these firms, there are quite a few deals that are done out of the US where one of the two parties is European so do end up in the league rankings but they were not necessarily done out of the London office - this applies to both firms, it would be quite hard to get a clean number for both firms so do not rely on this
4) Fit - did you prefer one team over the other? if so go with it, fit is really important for the conversion as well as the day to day. you do not want to be in a team that you hate on a daily basis.
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