Restructuring at a Bulge

Done a lot of reading on this site about Restructuring and most posters seem to only discuss restructuring at MM or Elite boutiques (Lazard, Moelis, Greenhill, Evercore, PWP etc). Can anyone provide insight into what restructuring is like at a bulge-bracket? Thanks in advance.

 

BB don't do restructuring....in fact that's one of the things that gets you instantly dinged during an interview.

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A lot of BBs have restructuring groups, but they are quieter and only go after certain types of deals. Also, many industry groups in BBs take on restructuring deals. The reason most restructuring falls in the hands of boutiques is partly because restructuring conflicts with their lending practice, but that is not the main reason. The main reason is that BBs don't want to create tension with their institutional clients, and normally restructuring deals involve negotiating with funds/pensions etc. that might be clients of the bank. That being said, there are some huge restructuring deals that have been done by BBs. One of the biggest recent deals was Charter and UBS's media group was the main advisor. Barclays has a big restructuring group, Morgan Stanley has a big practice (Fannie, Freddie, CIT), Goldman has a big restructuring group abroad, and the list goes on.

 

You are able to do restructuring at BBs product groups, but like others have said, its more limited and you often do not get the "big picture". An example would be DCM group doing debt refinancing and injecting new debt at better terms and retire old bonds. You get to play around with covenants but you will not be dealing with a chapter 11 or anything like that.

Advisory88 pretty much lists all of the top restructuring shops. I would just like to add that Evercore had amazing year last year in restructuring. Moelis is very much a restructuring only firm at this point so they get a lot of volume, but quality of the deals tend to vary.

 

M&A experience is valuable for restructuring firms in that they give a solid valuation background, necessary for evaluating firms that are looking to drastically cut costs and generate cash. Remember, many firms undergoing a restructuring will require divisions to be sold, and so M&A is helpful. Starting in restructuring is definately not required.

 
Best Response

my guess is that with the balance sheets at the BBs there is some conflict of interest vs. a strictly advisory based boutique or MM bank. As an analyst analyzing a potential DIP loan, I think you could learn a lot about the capital structure and collateral / liquidation value, etc. But my experience was at Rothschild, not a BB...we were working with the company, evaluating the DIP proposals, not creating them so my view is somewhat limited for Restructuring in a BB. At Rothschild, we were negotiating against the creditors on the company's behalf, evaluating the cash flow forecast, runway, new capital structures, debt forgiveness / equity grants, etc.

I am not sure if you would get that full experience at a BB unless they were strictly "advisors" to the creditors/debtors.

 

The top 4 (mentioned many times on this board already)

Blackstone Houlihan Lokey Jefferies Rothschild

After that there are a couple boutiques, then BBs.

How to get in? Start networking your alumni now. Fresh associates have no experience anyway, but you have to get known.

 

I dunno, I'm a little ignorant about Lazard. Prestigious name, but never caught my radar in restructuring. Probably because they don't recruit at my school anyway.

I know about Wasserstein (I actually read his 800 page book). So I thought it was strictly M&A house with some asset management.

 

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