RBC NY IB in 2019?

"popflex" I would try to see if the EBs will accelerate your timeline and get you a superday before your offer expires. If that doesn't work out, here is what I know of RBC's current situation from both having friends there and actually working on a deal with them recently (I'm a 2nd year analyst at a mid-tier BB, think Barclays/BAML). Unfortunately, I only have info on the M&A team as that is the only team I've had exposure to when working together on deals.

They probably have the most underrated M&A team on the street. These are some of the PE exits for current analysts in that group right now: Blackstone buyout, KKR buyout, LittleJohn, L Catterton, JMI Equity, Great Hill. Obviously not as good as the top BBs/EBs in terms of exit, but pretty damn impressive when considering how relatively new that team is on the street and about a third of the analysts don't participate in recruiting because they want to stay on as associates.

The big news recently is that the former Chairman of M&A at UBS, Larry Grafstein, jumped ship to RBC last summer, and the guy is one of the most respected big shots on the street. With this move, he joined the former head of Lev Fin & Sponsors at UBS, Matthew Stopnik, who is Apollo's #1 guy. Stopnik has been bringing insane sponsor deal flow to RBC, including being the lead advisor on the ~$3 billion Apollo-Cox deal recently.

In terms of culture, everyone at RBC seems extremely laid back and friendly, but this isn't necessarily a good thing. I've heard from my seniors that their friends at RBC weren't necessarily the best of the bunch when they left my current bank a couple years ago. My friend there also basically gets almost every Saturday off, so I think they take the Saturday policy pretty seriously.

Overall, RBC's M&A team seems very friendly. They have very strong deal flow in the upper middle market to low 9 figures range ($700 million - $2 billion seems to be their sweet spot), so chances are you won't work on the large deals you see on the WSJ with the exception of BB&T-Suntrust but the FIG team probably ran that by themselves. Solid platform with solid exit opps recently, but I would still recommend any EBs and GS/JPM/MS/CS/Citi over RBC. Assuming you get RBC's M&A group, I would still probably choose Barclays and BAML over RBC as well but it is a close one and culture would probably play a big factor here. Personally, I would choose RBC over DB or UBS any day in the US.

Hope this helps!!

Very good and fair assessment from someone currently at the bank (albeit not in NYC).

Seems pretty spot on. I've also heard that RBC NY has been expanding their class sizes pretty rapidly over the past few years.

Thanks so much for the insights, definitely useful in making a plan going forward and much appreciated!!