[SA 2024] CVP SF vs PWP LA vs Moelis SF
Hi all - was very fortunate to have received offers from both of these offices and really struggling to decide between the offers, so would appreciate any input or insight on culture, deal experience, and exits. Personal thoughts:
CVP SF
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Obviously very strong, and arguably the strongest office for biopharma M&A
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Unfortunately I really don't find biopharma M&A that interesting - was able to do well with a number of HC-focused offices because of my background
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Culture seemed intense from my conversations
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Vibed with the people at PWP LA by far out of all the offices, seemed to be a lot more collegial than the other two offices
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Interesting mix of industries covered - lots of industrials verticals, A&D, and now P&U and tech would make for a cool "generalist" experience imo
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From LA so a lot more familiar with the area/have a larger personal and professional network in the city
Moelis SF
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Culture seemed to be the least collegial among the three, didn't really vibe with the people there
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Seems like it'd be an exciting time for the office now that Moelis has poached all of SVB tech
Coming from a HC banker I'd say that the choice should come down to CVP SF vs PWP LA given your circumstances. Obviously a bit biased given the space I work in, but CVP SF is undoubtedly the best office to be at for biotech M&A, and no other office even comes close. With that being said, biotech is a very niche field, and if you don't really have interest in the space, you're not going to be a fan of your analyst experience. Exits from CVP SF are good but are oriented towards HC (once again if you're not interested in HC you might want to consider that). Culture there is very intense as you noticed, but isn't toxic; seniors always expect juniors to bring their A-game and there's no room for error. Also, to confirm, did you recruit into SF biotech? I remember hearing a year ago or so that CVP SF also has a "generalist" pool aside from the HC pool.
Have a couple of buddies who did their time at PWP LA before recruiting for the buy-side, so while I'm not as familiar with the industrials space I can speak on the office. Culture there was definitely hard-working but collegial, where juniors are pretty tight-knit, mid-level people are understanding and reasonable with staffing and managing, and seniors are friendly. The office is pretty lean so analysts are expected to take on more responsibility and wlb is pretty busy, but at the same time there's really no face-time culture or anything. I'm not as familiar with the office's new senior additions, but I do know that the OG team poached from BofA is good - the partner was a rainmaker at BofA focusing on large-cap clients and apparently gets really technical and jumps into the Excel models himself. Given the more "generalist" focus of the office, I'd expect that the office may cater to your interests better than CVP SF and also have better exits to generalist buyout compared to CVP SF's HC-focused exits.
Moelis SF is solid, but I'd argue that unless you're specifically interested in tech it should rank under CVP SF and PWP LA given your circumstances and interests. Exits are good (much better than the office's deal flow and reputation among SF Tech groups), but culture there is pretty rough last I heard. Overall, if you think you can spend 2 years only focusing on biotech and can see yourself staying in the HC space in the long-run in terms of corpdev or HC-focused buyside groups, would take CVP SF. Otherwise, PWP LA's better for a generalist experience.
Thanks for the insight. I did recruit into the biotech group directly - while I'm not completely disinterested in HC, I don't find biotech all that interesting, and I've heard that in biotech IB, you really need a passion because even as an analyst it's important to build up industry-specific knowledge for IB work and modeling and most good analysts spend quite some time doing research and reading technical papers about the space.
Biotech can definitely be a grind if you don't have any interest - these days even as a junior you're expected to know more and more of the basic science behind biopharma innovations, and it definitely takes passion in the space to read and digest all those papers. If you don't enjoy doing that now, I don't think you'd enjoy doing that for 2+ years.
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Good group, good deal experience, solid exits (Corp dev tends to be a bit more popular among analysts than streetwide), sweaty wlb and culture.
PWP LA given stated industry preference, location, and culture. Not that many healthcare roles in LA, so wouldn’t do a biotech banking role where your skills and exits will be more narrow (albeit still strong).
You may be able to leverage your PWP LA and CVP SF offer to get CVP LA, if you want.
I don't think there's much reason for OP to try to leverage for CVP LA, PWP has a much larger and stronger presence there. I don't think CVP LA has any juniors - pretty sure it's just Skip Paul and a small senior team that sits out there.
Think that Skip Paul is basically retired.
Do you know how PJT's LA (Santa Monica) office is?
LA office of CVP closed several years ago.
Thanks for clarifying
Hey, I'm interning at one of these spots for 2024, feel free to pm
I'll put it this way, you don't really like swimming, on the other hand you are interested in running. Would you rather learn swimming from a god level pirate who has command over the high seas and also happens to be a gold medalist in the sport, or would you learn running from an injured runner?
The swimming is Biopharma at CVP, you'll learn from the best of the best, in a very rare and highly coveted area, think of how many people actually are Biopharma analysts and worked with good healthcare companies? not loss making dog water firms that SVB loaned out to but good companies with a product, swimming might not be the rarest skill, but it still needs to be acquired, a lot less instinctual.
The running is PWP, sure, PWP in it's prime was something, but the name while still having value, doesn't hold as much weight as CVP. Running is much more instinctual than swimming and hence requires much less effort and patience, but think, how many people in the world can run? Unless you're injured or paralyzed you can easily run.
Speaking from personal experience, I have met a lot of HF managers at events, some that only investment in the Biopharma space and some that have extended into it and are looking to extend into it, they say that looking for an analyst with good pedigree in their space is tough, if you have CVP on your resume, you'll have to put zero effort into PE and HF recruiting, in fact they'll seek you out. That aside, the sheer career longevity and internal promotions at CVP make it even better, look at the comp partners and MDs pulled last year, you'll retire in a decade or two with those numbers.
As someone who's familiar with all 3 offices, I'd say you're overweighting CVP SF way too much. PWP LA has a very good senior team spread across a number of industries, and while Moelis SF has the weakest senior team out of the three offices, the office cross-staffs with the LA tech team which adds a lot to the experience. Using your analogy, CVP SF is where you'd be learning swimming from Michael Phelps, whereas PWP LA is where you'd be learning to be a pentathlete (mix of industries) from Andrey Moiseyev (not as legendary as Michael Phelps, but an Olympic gold medalist and top-of-the-game in his won field), and Moelis SF is where you'd be learning running from a regular Olympic qualifier who may not be a medalist, but is more-than-enough as a coach.
Also, you're also definitely over-weighing CVP in terms of exits. Headhunters definitely don't treat CVP as being on another plane of existence compared to Moelis or PWP, and I'd argue out of the 3 specific offices Moelis SF arguably has the best and widest breadth of exits because headhunters largely treat SF analysts as part of the Moelis WC team along with LA because they know SF and LA cross-staff. At the end of the day, career longevity is not necessarily better at CVP as well. Rather, career longevity completely depends on the amount of senior support and political goodwill you have, your deal experience, as well as upwards mobility. From the outside looking in, I'd actually argue that Moelis SF and PWP LA may be better for a mid-level associate planning ahead for his or her career (way too early for an analyst to be looking at this) because of the upcoming expansions offering more upwards mobility (Moelis SF bringing in SVB seniors means they'll likely need more VPs and EDs in the future and PWP's been expanding the LA office rapidly).
Agreed - I think that the original commenter is looking at CVP through rose-tinted glasses. In buy-side recruiting, there's no such thing as some firm seeking out an analyst from anywhere because of having CVP on their resume. It doesn't matter if you're from GS or Evercore or Lazard or CVP or PWP or Citi, buy-side recruiting is competitive, and the firm name only lands you a chance to be considered (and all of the firms listed above and many more give you roughly an equal chance). After getting you a foot in the door, it's all on your own performance.
Also, your career longevity at CVP is no better than most other banks on the street, and is much more of a factor of your internal network within a firm as well as opportunity and luck. I don't think people realize just how hard it is to make partner at especially CVP and PWP are - both those firms are known within IB circles to have a hard path from Principal/ED -> MD and an even harder path from MD -> Partner, and you see a lot of people at those levels pushed out at those levels.
Given your preferences I'd recommend PWP LA. It's a strong group with a culture conducive towards career development (know that the office has both an open culture wrt PE recruiting and is very friendly with A2A) that's growing rapidly - doubled its senior headcount since the beginning of 2022. You'll be working with a wider range of industries compared to CVP SF and Moelis SF as well.
Moelis SF might as well he Moelis Toronto considering half the team is from Canada
For what it’s worth Moelis in general is Canadian-school heavy compared to street.
Gotta love the Ivey and McGill representation.
Is that a good or bad thing
Lazard LA has decent Canadian representation as well.
Not sure what they're teaching the kids up at Canadian targets but they're absolute beasts - consistently hit the ground running much faster than the American summer analysts and new analysts.
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CVP, take it and dont look back ....
Go with PWP LA given your circumstances. Started off my career at a biotech-heavy HC group with zero interest in the field and i absolutely hated it - biotech is something you need to have passion in to work in the field effectively and motivate yourself.
How are BioTech IB exit opps? I'm guessing much more growth and corpdev and much less buyout?
Any idea whether Centerview is done recruiting or if spots are still open
SF is done.
I believe WC offices are done. Not sure about NY.
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