Rank EB’s in SF for Tech
Obviously Qatalyst is at the top but what about Lazard/PWP/Greenhill etc. Do any of these other boutiques stand out as being better culturally/deal flow wise??
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Qatalyst Evercore/CVP/Lazard Moelis/PWP rothschild/greenhill
all are amazing banks and places to work but seems to be the rep from people, would love to hear what other people have to say though!
I would agree with this list overall, but I would put Laz as the highest in the second tier and second overall. Every analyst in their last class that recruited exited to MF (10bn-100bn AUM) for East and west coast PE. They have slightly stronger deal flow than EVR/CVP winning regular buy side mandates for large cap tech - Google, Intel, Visa, IBM, etc.
Where have LAZ SF analysts actually exited to?
Some thoughts -
Second the point on Lazard. They advise Google on basically every large cap deal that they have, so that's some great dealflow right there.
Apparently Evercore is a lot of capital raises and not a ton of M&A, but that might be nonsense - just what I heard second hand from someone who knows someone there.
Moelis gets some interesting semis mandates (ex Broadcom), but not sure what else they do.
PWP has analysts either working on pure HC or mixed HC/Tech at the analyst level IIRC (or at least, that was the case when I interviewed there a few years ago), so that's interesting if you want more diversity of experience.
You can check out Centerview's tech deals on their website (https://www.centerviewpartners.com/transactions.aspx), some interesting stuff but looks like M&A advisory is mostly restricted to enterprise software deals - not sure how much variety you'll get as an analyst
Few buddies at PWP mentioned there’s no generalist program anymore in SF. Tech side is special committee work + cap raises and NY office does the mega TMT/fintech M&A deals (AT&T, Paypal, etc) but overall not much deal flow
Confirming Centerview is mostly software as stated above (friend there)
EVR MP does a lot of capital raising from the Healthcare group, Tech does mostly M&A
EVR tech definitely does M&A..... just advised Bluejeans $500m sale to Verizon last week
I don’t like these types of posts because you’re comparing apples and oranges. There is absolutely no reason to isolate the EBs for tech. Most BB tech groups are quite distanced from the larger company (ie MS Menlo is basically its own firm).
Also, all these groups are growing rapidly so anything we say today will probably not be relevant in a few months. Evercore tech, for instance, was just a couple people a few years ago and now it’s one of the fastest growing groups in the space since they brought in some quality MDs.
To summarize, don’t worry so much about “rankings,” which amount to the arbitrary ramblings of some random sophomore on this website who’s still salty about most of these firms rejecting him. All EB tech groups do really interesting deals and have great exits to VC, PE, and tech Corp Dev, so don’t worry about this “ranking” bullshit.
This characterization is wrong. BAML Palo Alto has M&A and coverage split, and coverage literally does pure coverage with almost no modeling to my understanding.
Laz SF tech does the M&A work because it's the dedicated tech group. There is no one to outsource the M&A to
Curious as well how the above EBs (excluding Q) stack up against BBs (excluding GS/MS) in Tech
sorry if this isn't super related, but is anyone in the process with Qatalyst or know anything about their recruiting timeline?
first rounds done
rip, thanks. do you go to a target for Q?
Someone from my school just got an offer from Q. My school isn’t a target, but an alumnus was trying to slate at least 1 spot for us. I think the person who won the offer ultimately leveraged another early offer they got (SF tech) into this one for Q. If you aren’t in the process then you likely won’t be
what school
I work at one of the EBs in SF but recruited at all of them. Here's what I gathered but generally it's Qatalyst > Evercore/Lazard/CVP > Moelis/PWP > Greenhill.
Q is a great shop. Don't really need to say more.
Evercore Menlo is probably the 2nd best. It's grown a ton over the past 5 years and just expanded offices. Bit of a bummer it's down in Menlo though. Not sure what the above poster is saying with respect to capital raising. It's mainly M&A. A lot of selling to sponsors it seems. Sold BlueJeans to Verizon last week for $500mm. Analyst exits are very good. Mix of MFs and VC.
Lazard is great as well but is a bit of a different experience. It's almost like a consulting service on retainer for companies like Google and IBM. You work with them almost exclusively on a bunch of things, be it M&A, raising, or pitching. Have been on huge deals like IBM Red Hat. Sick office views in the Embarcadero and great analyst exits as well. I think the lifestyle here is a bit better than other places I interviewed with. More exits to east coast than EVR but on par if not more consistent to MFs.
CVP seems like a great shop. They don't recruit associates in PA office so I didn't speak with them. Our analysts have friends there and it seems very solid.
PWP punches above its weight. Very tiny shop but like Laz work a lot with big companies like Blackberry and PayPal. There is some staffing overflow with healthcare but will likely change as the practice grows.
Moelis seems to be growing as well. Chill dudes but have heard can be a bit sweaty at times. Great office in downtown in SF.
Greenhill is very very tiny and seems to be on the decline. I think there's like one associate in the whole office.
How strong is CVP SF conpared to CVP NY?
bump
Whats CVP?
Agree here on Evercore / Lazard. Evercore Menlo is very solid, pretty well rounded experience, will do a ton of upper mid market sized transactions ($250mm-$2.5b, rough numbers), will have halfway decent balance, and will exit solidly. I'd probably give it the slight edge due to the diversity of experiences - Lazard is basically outsourced corporate finance for like 5 clients (Google and IBM being two), but again, solid lifestyle and exits. The one I would maybe toss a different opinion here on is PWP - I'm pretty close with some guys in the New York office and most of the big client stuff happens out of New York... they routinely joke about SF Tech not having done a deal in years... I doubt it's actually that dry, but I get the sense deals aren't exactly flowing out of SF.
Heard exactly the same thing regarding Perella. Deal flow in SF is just small cap raises / small sell sides and maybe 1 M&A deal a year. The WeWork / other big deals were done in the rx group or fin tech etc in NY
You definitely know the space.
Hey was wondering if you have any insights into PJT SF. Thanks!
Where the hell is FT Partners? Thought they were the top fin-TECH boutique out west.
Kinda answered your own question - fintech is really it, which severely limits deals and exit ops
Isn't Fintech a hot and growing sector now though?
I have heard nothing but bad things about FT. The kids that didn't get offers anywhere else ended up there. I think they gave offers to like 1 of 5 for their summer class.
Kinda backwards to define FinTech as niche. It's pretty much anywhere money and tech touch. FT Partners is also known for having a huge client list and insane fee outcomes.
Would put Q > Laz/ Evercore / CVP > FT >> Moelis / PWP / Greenhill. FT has a terrible culture but at least they do deals. I’ve basically seen no M&A tech deals out of Moelis / PWP / Greenhill (only cap raises, special committee, etc.)
you gotta be off your rocking chair man. In what world does FTP have a better reputation than Moelis SF? cant speak to PWP or Greenhill but Moelis SF is as solid as LA.
Moelis SF does not come close to LA, sorry
chill brah you’re arguing over bottom feeder firms in the tech space...objectively none of those compare to Q / LAZ / EVR / CVP. That’s like saying Target is better than Walmart when Williams Sonoma exists lol! gg
I don't really think it's worth comparing FT partners to anyone on this list. As everyone else has said, they're fantastic for FinTech, but only for FinTech - if that's your nice, and you KNOW you want to do FinTech banking (and then move to FinTech VC/CD/etc.), it's a solid pick. Otherwise, if you want a more generalist tech experience, maybe not your best bet. That said, if it's the only offer you have, I'm sure you could lateral to a more generalist tech group after some time spent there - the deal experience, while limited to a single vertical - will still be solid.
Incoming SA at a top tech group in SF.. what do you guys recommend to do before the summer for prep? How helpful is doing a modeling course or do you pick up what you need on the job?
Q?
Incoming FT at a top tech group. I'd recommend that you start reading up on tech / tech strategy - check out the blog Stratechery as a good starting point. Other than that, normally I'd say "enjoy spring semester", but well...
Is PWP SF really dry as the above comments make it out to be? I thought they did some big Blackberry deals and PayPal as well?
Most of that was run out of NY.
Lol yes PWP tech is very dry...buddies in NY said they just take NY creds and use as their own for their meetings and recruiting purposes...total joke
How would you explain the PayPal/Honey deal? Ask anyone knowledgeable, and they'll mention Jackie Chan as one of PWP's biggest rainmakers.
How does Lazard Tech in Boston compare to their SF office?
Curious on people's thoughts on how Union Square Advisors stacks up against this group
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