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Lazard, Moelis and PWP in NY would be my tops picks.
Ranking the three above would depend on group placement, and who you liked better.
My rankings:
Lazard NY PWP NY Moelis NY/GS Chicago GS NY ECM
I'll expand upon this. Lazard NY is strong in both M&A and restructuring- great exit opps, well known name across the industry- as the other guys are saying the 'sweatshop' reputation is undeserved, and completely varies by group (as it does at any bank).
PWP will probably give you better lifestyle, and the well known "Perella places everyone into HBS" is somewhat true- I don't see great placement coming from PWP into PE, but I'm sure it is there. Be honest I know the least about PWP compared to these other places- I've heard pretty great things about it, and it is still a growing firm with a growing name. It would be a tough decision for me between here and Lazard.
Moelis NY is not Moelis LA- not a bad shop and actually larger, but not the same exits as LA by any stretch- Moelis has large SA and Analyst classes and is becoming a bit over-saturated- the 'exciting time' to join Moelis is a few years past, and the hype around them I think will only continue to go down. Also heard that Moelis is a sweatshop and haven't seen people calm those rumors- not saying it is true, but who knows.
GS Chicago- great firm but really MM deals- all M&A which is nice, but smaller deals and all FIG/Industrials which is great if you like those industries, not great if you don't. The move to NY is harder than you'd think (most of them don't have any intention of going to NY)- very collegiate atmosphere in a smaller office, solid placement into Chicago MM PE, but your options are going to be pretty regionally based out of this office. We're also talking about a SA class of 4-6 so you better like the people at the office.
GS NY ECM- great reputation, might work on some cool stuff, but it is ECM and as you can find anywhere on here, ECM doesn't open up the same doors that coverage banking does- I've seen people transition at GS between the 2 (seen it more from coverage to ECM than the other way around), so it is possible, but probably not the ideal plan to have going in. Little bit better lifestyle which is great.
If you want to do capital markets banking, obviously you only have one choice. The advantage of capital markets is better hours, more market driven, disadvantage is fewer exit opps.
In terms of industry coverage groups, I would say PWP NY >= GS Chicago = Lazard NY > Moelis NY.
You can't go wrong with any of those choices in my opinion--except Moelis. They are the least prestigious brand AND will work you the hardest.
Perella
LAZ hands down.
If you want to stay in banking, I am pretty sure that you can easily move from GS Chicago to GS NY in a couple of years...
Depends on what you want. My experience with Laz summer was that the sweatshop rumor that floats around here is mostly untrue (I had some particularly brutal staffings so it was somewhat true in my case). The hours are the hours, and that's not going to change from bank to bank. Culturally, there's a lot of variation. Some groups (GB) are pretty uptight (and French), while others (TMT, Healthcare, P&E) are more laid back, but, again, this is still banking. People are intense. Being staffed as a generalist was pretty cool, and that's what drew me to Lazard.
Looks like you have some great choices. I'd be happy to speak at some length over PM about Laz vs. my friends at other banks. Best of luck.
No horse in the race but just curious, what does GB stand for?
FWIW OP, I have heard similar things to throwawayLAZ about LAZ NYC in regards to the sweatshop culture not exactly being true.
General Banking. It's general industrials coverage. They did InBev-Modelo, for example.
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you have offers from two out of five but ask for all five? why???
Yeah didn't see that it was an old thread, happens sometimes.
Perhaps he obtained offers at the other three sometime in the past 14 months?
....we shall maybe never know ....
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