Some firms do M&A in coverage groups, some don't - which is better?

I know the same investment banks do M&A within their coverage groups while others have separate M&A teams that do the M&A work.

Is it better to be at a firm that does M&A in its coverage groups or does that not matter? Is one type of organizational structure better than the other for opportunities?

If you are in a coverage group that also has a separate full-on M&A team at the firm, does that mean you won' really get to work on that much M&A/technical exposure?

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You may have a slight advantage for PE recruiting if your coverage group does in-house M&A because you’ll have more experience modeling. It’s not “better” to be or not to be, but people say it gives you an edge in PE recruiting if that’s in the cards for you.

At the end of the day this is such a marginal factor of consideration when choosing between banks. Nobody would turn down MS to model in-house for a coverage group at Barclays. Maybe this is something you could consider when comparing more comparable banks, say Citi/Barclays/CS but there are still more important things.

Any coverage analyst will still be deep in models and get a great technical experience, but at banks with an M&A group they may “own” the M&A model. That’s all

 

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