The definitive Bulge Bracket list

I have been noticing some discrepancy as to which firms are Bulge Bracket firms and which are not. One publication had the five stand alone American i-banks as the bulge bracket and I have seen different people on here say different things. Below I listed who I believe is the Bulge Bracket, is this an accurate list?

Citigroup JPMORGAN UBS Goldman Sachs Lehman Brothers Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch Deutsche Bank Credit Suisse

16 Comments
 

When the tide is down, we finally know who's not wearing any clothes...what you see in some of these banks are actually pretty ugly. Citi and UBS are definitely two of the ugliest.

 

Sounds like a good list to me.

Though I think most lists/rankings are basically bullshit. I'd really hate to see this proposed list of top boutiques - talk about a flamewar waiting to happen.

  • Capt K
- Capt K - "Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, bait the hook with prestige." - Paul Graham
 
Best Response

the flame war is the reason why I think a list of top boutiques is needed. Even at Wharton, unless a person is really into finance, they have no idea wth Evercore or Greenhill are quite often unless they've already done banking. The BB list is there fundamentally so people know what kind of firm they're getting into in terms of prestige and exit opps. a top boutique list would serve a similar purpose I'd think and at least the debate would give people a lot of new info.

 

In my opinion, bulge bracket status is too subjective for "definitive list."

To me, if a firm meets the following three criteria consistently, I consider it bulge: - the firm is large in scale (revenue, tables, volume) and scope (product mix, including cap markets) - when any newsworthy transaction is announced, it would not be the least bit surprising to see the bank in a lead role - in a given sector/product, on average the bank is either in the top 5 by volume/revenue OR it would be reasonable to assume that IF the bank REALLY wanted to be, it could make that happen within a few years

I don't think bulge status is in any way a function of "prestige," rather it's the other way around.

 

Bulge bracket list seems kind of stupid to me. How about an "Investment banks that you would'nt not want to work for" list. Especially considering that M&A experience is something that a lot of people want in order to go on to PE/HF/whatever. Would people here really choose Wachovia or someone else not on this list, or even one of the other names on this list like DB over LAZ/GHL/EVR?

 

Douche bag.....wait...I mean Deutche Bank isn't a <abbr title="bulge bracket

">BB...not realy at least

So what do you do? -I work for an investment banking firm. Oh okay; you are like my brother, he works for Edward Jones. -No, a college degree is required in my profession

Reality hits you hard, bro...
 

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