Poll: Is Jefferies considered as a Bulge Bracket Bank?

Recently heard about the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) sending an outreach to a recruitment consulting agency to update their tier to bulge bracket and EB at the least. The recruitment consulting agency then updated the rank. Any thoughts on this?

Is Jefferies finally a BB?

Yes, Jefferies is a BB.
21% (113 votes)
No, Jefferies is still not considered a BB right now.
79% (415 votes)
Total votes: 528
42 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Having spoken to senior people about this during recruitment, they’re not pursuing the BB and much less EB label. It’s weird the CMO would do that though.

Jefferies’ closest peers are pre-2008 banks like Merrill, Bear, and Lehman. Large balance sheet used aggressively, advisory focused but not exclusively advisory, offering a range of products but not the full suite across the globe like a BB. Senior bankers explicitly said this is the model they’re building, not BB and definitely not EB. Can’t really be MM either when they work on $1bn deals all the time, $5bn deals fairly consistently now, and even a few $10bn+ deals in the last couple years.

 

Jef is in their own bucket, though, will say "all the time" on 1Bn+ deals is a stretch, Jef works on any deals ranging from 100mm - 1Bn+ EV, it's a hallmark of Jefferies. Jef gets you ga reat experience for decent exits and terrible WLB (even for IB). It's a very unique bank and hard to categorize, but the actual deal experience is strong for most groups, even though outrageously sweaty (every bank is sweaty relative to a regular job; but there's a reason Jefferies is a meme for terrible WLB even in this industry; it's truly that much worse than the rest).

 

CMO reaching out to Chinese agency beggin for more recognition is absolute drama LMFAO

 

If anything, SMBC will acquire a higher stake. Don’t know where you got Nomura from.

 

Generally agree with comment above with caveat that it is a tactical vs large B/S (e.g not known to take RCF holds, and B/S used for selective deals or acquisition financing). My understanding is comp structure actually incentivizes bankers to not use capital (e.g. a deduct to pay for a revolver hold or outstanding capital committment). 

 

Good bank in London. Healthcare team best in Europe and US, very strong Industrials team / TMT / Energy. Good M&A / Levfin team. Avoid because every team will drain you

 

They simply aren't anywhere near global enough, so no. Not an EB because one of their biggest things is their very strong and unregulated LevFin franchise that allows sponsors to take higher leverage than traditional banks. They have less of an argument for being a BB than UBS and DB, who at least historically were truly global banks, strong in every region/were BBs.

 

The bulge bracket and other classifications of banks are retarded. What matters is full-service / lending bank or advisory only, the group, and size / type of deals typically worked on.

 
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