Restructuring in London?
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Career Resources
PJT/HL>PWP/Roth/Laz>Moelis/EVR
How possible is it to lateral from a RX consulting background to one of these firms e.g. FTI / PWC / A&M > PJT etc?
ive mostly seen it happen over way round but I have seen it happen (at least from A&M/AP...assume so for FTI...dunno about Big 4).
.
Thanks! Can I ask what your basing this on? Is it deal flow, reputation etc?
I'm in a Distressed/SS seat which always looks for RX guys - we only ever hear pitches from PJT/HL/Lazard.
By no means is the firm we use a proxy for being "well-regarded" in London, but whenever we do deals we frequently see our counterparts use the same mix of the 3 advisors, so hopefully I'm being reasonable
From another recent thread, see below (link: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investment-banking/london-rx-ib-r…)
Leaving an EB RX stint, so unbiased as much as I can
PJT undisputed leader, huge team and consistently can pick/choose deals they want to do. HL is dominates alongside, by virtue of their crappy deals they do for sponsors their RX funnel does very well, always on every mandate creditor-side with a great team. Lazard is consistently top, fell of a bit but rebuilding again and doing well.
I'd say that defines most of London
Then you obviously have exceptions. For example PWP very European focused but very good and increasingly a good presence. Roths/EVR I've rarely heard of in RX (personally never seen them in a process) and somewhat muted for Moelis now (used to hear good things) - also recently lost their head to Lazard. Jefferies is too young in their practice to say anything
Can't comment on operational firms but FTI/A&M frequently consulted by us
Thanks so much! This is exactly what I was looking for.
Do SS funds only look at RX pitches or do you also work with the Debt Advisory teams at Laz/HL/Jeff/Roths etc.? Is it possible to exit to Distressed/SS from the latter?
That's a great question. Splitting into 2.
Our guys are almost all ex-RX/M&A and from banks with a lot of deal flow so traditionally, anything that's even remotely related to what debt advisory teams would have our guys already on - so luckily we don't really need a team - and then next step would be we just call up our in-house capital markets team. Worst case (and this has never happened), we just use the LevFin guys the PE team uses for their processes. In short, never considered hiring debt advisory. From what I know these debt advisory teams aren't RX experts so they're angles don't really help and again... if something came to a point where it becomes "debt advisory" and a sponsor hasn't seen it or knows how to engage it... pretty bad (they've usually gone through 100s of these to know most - if not all - situations. Debt advisory I imagine is only useful for corporates
Just to help clarify things, we only ever even look at RX pitches at the last possible scenario of a pending restructuring or a distressed scenario where we're forming groups
Re hiring people/moving from Debt Advisory to DD/SS - sadly never seen it and I don't think so (but definitely worth a LinkedIn search!). We mandate our HH strictly top M&A/Rx or buyside guys, and friends at other shops in the same seat say the same. Skillsets are so different, and very hard to see the things we do on our side on that job + the hundreds of M&A, LevFin & RX candidates available
Hope these were useful!
Can you speak to how you view the consultants (A&M etc...). I currently started at a boutique in New York. My background is 2 years engineering > 4 years Big 4 valuation> T15 US MBA, Internship at $1T+ AM in bond sales, and 3 months at renewables/infra private credit fund.
Took Rx consulting b/c wasn't getting much offers given the 2023/2024 recruiting environment even though I didn't want to be in an operational role. I do find Rx interesting.
Not sure what paths I want out of Rx but don't really know what's out there. Not necessarily interested in distress/SS buyside...I think LevFin or DCM at a bank would be cool if this is even possible.
What's your view on Rx consulting and the skills you see are valuable? Asking generally.
Hey man, cool background!
Yes, not much to add here. Basing my response on your suggestion of going into DCM/LevFin - my banking class had a lot of MBA guys, across all teams. Do the usual stuff e.g., network, you'll be way more than fine
My more detailed take would be - from my experience, restructuring consulting can be a mixed path. While it provides some great exposure to distressed situations and operational challenges, the skillset developed tends to be more operationally focused rather than transaction-oriented. The modeling and technical financial analysis is typically not as rigorous as what you'd see in banking or direct investing roles. Again, that said, the exposure to complex situations and stakeholder management is such good exposure for roles like DCM or LevFin where understanding credit and operational dynamics is important. If you're targeting banking roles, you may need to particularly emphasize any quantitative and financial analysis work you do get exposure to, while leveraging your broad operational and restructuring knowledge as a differentiator. Shouldn't be too hard
Challenge only comes with buy-side nuances; in many buy-side roles, particularly in SS / distressed investing, they tend to place significant emphasis on modeling capabilities and transaction experience that may be harder to develop in a consulting environment (by no means hard though) - I see some of our guys who we've engaged operationally to be just as sharp financially.
Would be interested to hear thoughts on (what seems to be) the lower end of the market outside of NYC i.e. RTH, EVR, MOE etc?
And what about DC Advisory (re Thames)?
Is deal-flow/experience/exits comparable to the top firms?
Particularly interested in London would be great to get any insight
RTH is strong in London and has done a fair few of the more recent high profile debtor mandates although obviously weak in the US. EVR is the opposite - little to no RX presence here and the only time I’ve come across them on deals has been on UCC mandates. MOE does a fair amount of debtor work, but does often lose out to PJT.
All are below PJT for debtor and HL for creditor mandates.
Second this. Would only add that MOE had a high profile exit about 9 months ago, so platform has deteriorated
Heym I'm an incoming analyst at a top team of a mid American BB (think Citi/Bofa). I have now realised that what I really wanna do is Distressed SS. What would you guys recommend I do? Should I stay for my analyst stint at the bank and then try to lateral to RX shop, or do I have any changes of landing a seat at a distressed fund?
M&A or LevFin?
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