Quick question.
What are the exit opps for tech M&A teams vs. coverage teams? Does joining an M&A team provide any leverage, and if so, in what ways? Is it considered more prestigious than ordinary coverage?
Thanks.
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BAML Palo Alto? If it's the same bank, then the m&a group will probably give you better exit ops for PE. However, GS TMT is better than BAML Tech m&a for exit ops even though gs tmt is a coverage group.
To echo the above, when it comes to tech, your bank matters much more than your group. BAML has had shit placement regardless of Tech/Tech M&A. Same with DB.
GS, CS, and Barclays all run M&A through their coverage teams, so there is no "tech M&A". Not sure about MS Menlo, but their coverage guys go to megafunds anyway, so if there are dedicated M&A analysts there it doesn't appear make much difference. Maybe it matters at JPM?
MS Menlo has both tech m&a and tech, but like you said, placement is phenomenal either way.
JPM SF just has M&A and tech coverage.
Got it, thanks guys.
I've actually heard that CS SF tech has a designated M&A team - do you think they (or anyone else who has a focus on M&A) place fairly well into tech-focused PE shops relative to BAML/BarCap/JPM/etc.? Also, does being on a specific product AND industry team (e.g., tech M&A) offer strong leverage as a result of its specialization relative to ordinary industry coverage groups?
CS SF only has a M&A team for associate and above. Analysts are across both capital markets work and tech m&a. qataylst poached most of CS SF's top players, but it's still a good shop and would rank right below jpm/ms/gs in terms of BB's.
kidflash nailed it on the M&A coverage front. Unless there's been a very recent change in the past month or so, CS Tech M&A has run through the coverage groups.
If you're not familiar with the group, CS Tech crushed on just about everything back in the 90s. Far and away the best tech group on the street. They ran shit. But Frank Quattrone, who headed up the group, bounced to found Qatalyst in like '07 (after winning a bunch of legal battles) and his top M&A guy, George Boutros, went with him and took a lot of CS's M&A deal-flow. Their IPO franchise is still pretty solid, but they've been working to repair the M&A team for the past couple of years. Currently, I would say that GS and MS are their own tier and CS/JPM are another, but this is pushing us down one of those awful "rankings" threads that is just the worst form of WSO circle-jerkery.
In terms of exit opps, CS has done really well. They've got a couple guys currently at Silver Lake. VC, growth equity. Google. Do a LinkedIn search? Dunno how their summer '14 cycle went, but I bet that Dell analyst got his pick of megafunds if he wanted it. To reiterate: al these placements would all be from their Technology coverage group. Not Tech M&A. There aren't any CS tech M&A analysts.
Unless you're the first?
Strong placement (although to be fair, most of the analysts I met in that office were pretty legit).
I personally know of/know several ex-CS SF Tech Silverlake guys (including one analyst who jumped to Silverlake as an analyst lateral ~9 months into his first year), an analyst who lateralled to Qatalyst, H&F associate, Criterion Capital analyst, etc.
Also, I know other people might disagree with me, but I actually really liked most of the people I met in that office.
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