The Undisputed Investment Banking Rankings

Below are the undisputed investment bank ranking. Comment below if you want any specific rankings.

Tier 1A: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Evercore, Centerview

Tier 1B: JP Morgan, Lazard, PJT Partners 

Tier 2A: Bank of America, Moelis, PWP, Barclays

Tier 2B: Citi, Credit Suisse, Guggenheim

Tier 3: UBS, DB, Jefferies, Greenhill

All other banks are irrelevant. Make sure to like and subscribe for more content.

79 Comments
 

Lazard LA alumn here, and I'm going to have to disagree. Lazard's traditionally been a stronger and more established office given the PWP office was just founded in 2017, but they've taken some pretty big hits. Even though the Interactive Media guy they poached to reload is very good at what he does,  losing the office head to JPM in 2020 was a really big hit. Losing Steve was also a pretty big hit for deal flow and office morale, as everyone absolutely loved Steve. When the senior core has stuck together for so long, so much turnover in the past two years has really hurt office morale.

Also while PWP's obviously poached Steve and their new JPM P&U guy is supposedly a really big deal (I know nothing about that space), the ex-BofA core is really strong and are whale hunters in the Industrials space (off the top of my head they closed the $6.5B MKS Instruments/Atotech deal recently), so they certainly have been pretty good historically.

 

An1 at EVR rn. Not too far off in terms of internal politics, bureaucracy, and caliber of new recruits (half wicked smart, half braindead... I'll let you figure out who falls into each bucket)

However, deal experience, junior responsibility, and exit ops are still well above the BBs (other than GS, MS, and JPM). EVR may not be what it was 5-10 years ago but it's still on a different level

 

MC and PWP below MS, JPM, and LAZ is so inaccurate, at least from an exits perspective. 

 

How are SF analysts treated during on cycle? I thought SF analysts gets a lot of looks from SF buyside. And what makes you say nothing worth it here except top 2 buckets

 

After several requests, I have decided to bless you all with the undisputed Bay area rankings. 

Tier 1A: Qatalyst, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley 

Tier 1B: JP Morgan, Evercore

Tier 2A: Lazard, CVP, BofA

Tier 2B: Moelis, PWP, Citi

Tier 3: Jefferies, CS, Barclays

Tier 4: DB, PJT

All other banks are irrelevant.

If you only care about exits, PWP and Moelis are on 2A, and Citi gets moved down to Tier 3 with Tier 2B no longer existing. But my rankings are not about exits. They are undisputed.

 

Are they based on prestige or what? Confused as on what rankings are based off if not prestige

 

but baml palo alto lost all of their top rainmakers? are they still tier 2A? what about moelis after they poached the entire team from SVB?

 

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Career Advancement Opportunities

September 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.5%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.9%
  • JPMorgan 01 98.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 01 97.8%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.3%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

September 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.5%
  • Morgan Stanley 02 98.9%
  • Evercore 01 98.4%
  • Banco Santander 02 97.8%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.3%

Professional Growth Opportunities

September 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.5%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.9%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 98.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 01 97.8%
  • JPMorgan No 97.3%

Total Avg Compensation

September 2026 Investment Banking

  • Vice President (16) $429
  • Associates (51) $260
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
  • 2nd Year Analyst (26) $182
  • Intern/Summer Associate (14) $159
  • 1st Year Analyst (84) $151
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (76) $101
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