RBC M&A vs. WF M&A vs. UBS M&A
Rank from best to worst for deal exposure, reputation in industry, exits, long term viability on team, and being able to bring in deals as a senior
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like shooting fish in a barrel
Never UBS, it’s much worse at M&A than both of the others. UBS is sweaty and with very little deal flow
UBS M&A isn’t worse as a platform — it’s just that the actual UBS M&A bankers are hilariously useless. Juniors spend their days pitching things no one asked for, doing work that the coverage or sponsors teams didn't want to do, getting barked at by flowless MDs with Napoleon complexes; all while sitting under a layoff guillotine that swings every earnings call.
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No, as an M&A platform: it's WF>UBS>RBC in the US (again controversial, assume most people here would put UBS first, but I am personally very bullish on WF). RBC is just clearly the worst of the three as a platform; I do think the actual M&A group at RBC is stronger than UBS's, given the splits in workflow, but to be very clear, UBS is a significantly stronger US M&A platform, and it's not close. Despite RBC having tons of commercial lending relationships in the region where UBS has essentially zero, RBC is still way below UBS in TEV for LTM US M&A.
RBC first? The bank that confuses lending someone money through commercial banking with being invited to the M&A table?
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UBS is higher than RBC in the following US league tables: YTD, LTM, since 1/2024, and since 1/2023 as pointed out above.. There is no way to argue or look at the data and come to the conclusion that out of the 3, RBC is the best. BTW, WF is also higher than RBC and UBS, but WF has a very unique competitive moat to where perhaps league tables overstate the strength of the franchise. Think the top spot is either UBS or WF, depending on how much you factor in deal flow from commercial bank strength.
WF just did a 24bn deal as the sole sell-side advisor to worldpay. def above RBC at the least for M&A
Absolutely agree. WF has a lot of great senior hires from across the street and a very unique position in the US given their commercial lending relationship. Think it's one of the best longer-term platforms to be in. I acknowledge exits are worse than peers (would say UBS/Jef are the broader peers in the US for now), but also think it's among the best spots to be a career banker rn.
UBS M&A is one of the single most toxic groups in the bank, with horrendous culture/bad seniors, absurdly long hours, and multiple recent firings of people, including juniors. They are simply not a good group in the bank, while at WF and RBC, M&A is one of the better groups. Also, will note, unlike other banks where M&A has sole pen on M&A model, do not be deceived by M&A marketing in UBS group placement; coverage groups do a lot of the main modelling with the assumptions.
I think it's pretty clear UBS is a better US M&A franchise than RBC, for example, but if the question is between RBC's top group and a below-average one at UBS, I would strongly consider RBC here. Also, as a note, I would still take UBS top groups over any groups at RBC and WF for exits, deal exposure, and reputation. As a secondary note, I would think WF is the best platform to be here for a longer-term banking career, but by this stage, I am aware that is not a common opinion on this forum.
The most impressive part of UBS threads is the dedication this ex-ED has in hating on UBS. Even when they begrudgingly defend UBS, they still manage to throw jabs at the firm. Also, that Associate 2 picking every firm over UBS is always funny. The legacy UBS people, or at least a decent amount of them, seem to have UBS living rent-free in their heads after getting fired.
Anything but UBS
RBC will give you good reps but exits probably worse than UBS due to brand
From people Ik at UBS and RBC: M&A isn't viewed as a top group internally, whilst RBC M&A is viewed as a top group. From looking up past analysts at both on Linkedin and just knowing people at both firms, I don't think UBS M&A exits significantly better than RBC M&A, with exits being mostly MM and a UMM here and there, though the difference is very obvious when looking at exits from other groups such as LevFin/Sponsors and Industrials. Though to some extent, I am sure the fact that fewer UBS kids as a whole leave doesn't seem to help them, the exits for the top UBS group seem class above RBC M&A, even for corporate PE and classes above RBC in PC; where UBS LevFin/Sponsors seemingly has very good rates into MF PC.
I also think something interesting is that the UBS top groups outside of those 3 have shifted/changed over the years as if you look at analysts from a few years ago, Tech had comparable exits to the 3 groups mentioned but as of rn the group has no flow and there are juniors on this forum complaining about how they cannot exit from the tech team. It's gonna be interesting to see what exits from HC/CR (the other groups who have been mentioned as having flow at UBS) look like in the next few years. Also of note, seems like FIG at UBS had strong FIG PE exits/better than RBC M&A (albiet obviously with the exits being FIG specific) and again we will see how that goes for UBS over these coming years as it seems like based on commentary in this forum, UBS FIG is fairly weak.
I’ve heard a former MD at UBS TMT say that fees are about 10% now as to they were at the teams peak which is hard to believe but the group just seems to have disappeared and you don’t really see them on any press releases on deal announcements for the most part
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