Thoughts on IB Houston EB’s? Lazard, Evercore, PWP/TPH?
Culture and rep at each firm? Any opinions? Would you pick it over a BB in Houston? Anything appreciated. Thanks!
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Would pick Evercore over Barclays and Citi. TPH is no longer what it used to be and Lazard is irrelevant.
Source: worked at Evercore and now work at MF
Any insight on PJT? MoCo? Jeff? I'm probably missing another on the independent advisor side.
PJT team is very small (1-2 analysts) and did not work on any deals recently. MC and Jeff have great deal flow but are very specialized (A&D, RX). Would choose BBs over these two. Would say MC > > Jeff >= PJT
Do you have any insight on the PWP team in Houston?
PWP Houston=TPH
Thanks for your answer. Why is Lazard irrelevant?
MC and Evercore took over RX so Lazard is not on any RX. M&A was never good. They also downsized their analyst class.
Yeah they were on a lot of the bigger OFS RX stuff, now doing normal M&A from what I gather
Thoughts on current EVR exits?
Most recent ranking circle jerk for reference: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/ranking-energy-groups
Above street / on par with EBs
Official ranking:
Tier 1: Evercore, Barclays, Citi
Tier 2: GS, MS, JPM
Tier 3: TPH, Moelis, Scotia, Jeff
Tier 4: RBC, Lazard, HL, everyone else
Source: Worked at Evercore, now work at BX/KKR/Apollo
Disclaimer: Only applies to analyst/associate level (exit ops, pedigree etc). See below for overall ranking.
Barclays above Jeff and TPH? LOL idek where else to start with that list its so off
Sure thing “prospect”
This has to be the dumbest ranking I have seen.
Barclays is no where close to Tier 1. It has lost a number of key dealmakers over the years and it shows.
Scotia has fallen off the cliff let go of most of its senior team in 2020 during the early period of COVID and has felt that pain as the markets have rebounded.
RBC is too low - Looks like RBC gained during recent times as other Canadian banks backed out/ scaled down (BMO / Scotia). Upstream is booming.
Jeff is too low - it is leading the league tables currently - and midstream is pulling that by the way not A&D. They are a lot more diversified than people give the group credit. Upstream and Midstream both super active - also hired a new MD with some background in renewable energy.
Evercore is too high - Very spotty deals over the past couple of years. Did a lot of RX but that didn't translate into deals when the prices went up (have personally seen the group lose out on repping companies that they advised in bankruptcy when the time came to selling those companies). RX drove the group in 2020 but since those came to a stop 2021 onwards, the group has gone cold. One deal accounted for bulk of the deal value last year (the cimarex deal). Thus, Evercore is no way close to the top category (not that its not a good group - still a great group but not the top)
Gonna put my rankings below as someone currently in Energy IB but just wanted to point out that you are probably outdated, and while Evercore was at the top, it has fallen and putting it above some of the other banks is absurd.
This 100%. This guy actually understands Houston right now lol
Is energy PE the only exit after EVC Houston? Guys in Houston seem pretty dumb compared to rest of the country, so not sure how Rowan is fine with taking dimwits in Houston and BX seems to be decreasing energy team size.
Tier 1a: Citi, GS, JPM
These BBs are on the top alone, no independent adv. group was close in the past couple of years
Tier 1b: Jefferies
JEF is more diversified than people give it credit (between upstream & midstream, also building out Energy Transition in HOU with a good amt. of traction). Ranked first 22 YTD. Historically, EVR was in this group but haven't seen them on many deals post the RX wave
Tier 2a: MS, TPH, RBC
RBC the real gainer here - great couple of years for them [specially in A&D]. TPH historically in 1b but has fallen. TPH has seen senior turnover since, I assume, the lockups from the PWP acq. would have expired. (Interesting side note: Pickering has created a new shop that also does Energy IB, let’s see how that turns out)
Tier 2b: Barclays, CS, EVR
Barclays is a legacy group that has lost its shine. CS has seen turnover in the early part of 2021 and while it was seen on a lot of the big deals at the end of 2020/beg. of 2021 it lost that steam. See above for EVR.
Kinda gets confusing below this because the shops are driven more by any given year (can get hot or cold)
Tier 3a: Intrepid, BofA, Piper Sandler (hired the team Scotia let go)
Tier 3b: WF (debt shop), TD, MOE (similar to EVR but at a worsened scale)
Tier 4a: Lazard, Petrie, Greenhill
Tier 4b: Truist, Raymond James, PJT, UBS
Tier 5: Rest of the shops
Lol TD above anybody? PJT is way better on comp and brand alone
I don't know why this is being downvoted. He provided a relatively accurate list for pure group-wide M&A dealflow over the last few years but a "place I want to go" list would look significantly different. Brand name matters. $$$$ matters. Citi, JPM and a few others paid like ass this year relative to dealflow.
Just out of curiosity what have you heard about Jefferies’ outlook compared to your T1 BBs? I assume what makes the BBs stand out is their project finance lending capabilities and expertise building out clean tech/energy transition type initiatives? Ive heard Jefferies has merged their Energy & Power groups for this exact reason with HOU working on renewables, esg deals etc. but its all been second hand info so I’m not too sure? Full disclosure currently in a process with them and wasn’t sure how to consider the group in terms of deal flow diversity, comp, exits, wlb etc.
Correct, the 3 BBs stand out because of their lending capabilities. Banks like JPM, Citi, RBC also use their outstanding loans with companies to make sure they get on the deals so that is a moat that can't be replicated by banks that don't have such lending capabilities. Overall, the clean tech / energy transition type initiatives aren't big enough to propel a bank into the first place [although it will continue to increase in the future].
While Jefferies doesn't have the traditional lending capabilities it does have a very strong LevFin practice (side note: The energy group is the only group at Jefferies that has its own set of LevFin bankers), which kind of puts them in-between the lending powerhouses and the independents such as EVR, TPH (which is why, in my opinion, JefCo will continue to remain above EVR and TPH). So, JefCo will trail 1a BBs but not by as much as the other banks that used to be at the same level.
Also correct on Jefferies merging Energy and Power together. The power of the group is in Houston, which separates the bank from T1a BBs because the BBs have most of the renewable/clean tech/transition team sitting in NY which means if you were to go join their Houston group your experience will still be mostly the traditional energy. So, I think Jefferies will provide for a superior junior HOU experience in energy transition / tech.
Overall, the group’s deal flow is in the following order: Upstream > Midstream > >ESG >>>>> OFS with the first two accounting for most of the deal flow. Having said that, the staffing is somewhat dependent on what the analyst wants (the staffer takes this into account). I know of an analyst that works primarily on ESG stuff, multiple that are Upstream + ESG, some that only work on upstream and those that that are Upstream + Midstream. That is to say, you can tailor it to a certain extent based on what you want.
Comp is top of the street. First year base is 110 and this past year, first years got around 100k in bonuses (if the bonus holds flat – which is likely because Energy has a lot of strong deals in the pipeline, first year TC will be ~200k), second years had something around 150k top bucket (so around ~275k). If you stick around for A2A I have heard you can negotiate a pretty lucrative package for yourself. Hence, you’ll make more than any shop in Houston except for Evercore [only marginally for the first year, for the second year I think JefCo is higher].
The tales of the WLB at JEF HOU are true. You’ll get grinded because most of the deals are live ones so there’s a lot of work going around but that will not be any different than the T1 shops or some of the T2 shops (JPM and GS are notorious for their toxic cultures, Citi has a pretty good culture but almost the same level of hours as JefCo). I think the junior culture at Jefferies is actually pretty good. Protected Friday nights / Saturday mornings but only for pitches which basically doesn’t matter because you are always on live deals.
Exits trail those of T1a shops because of the perceived brand name and self-selection. Those that can handle the hours at Jefferies tend to stick around for A2A given the pay is probably at par or higher than MFs etc., and those that can’t don’t tend to want to do MF/UMM PE. Energy is probably the only group at Jefferies that has seen MF exits on at least a semi-consistent basis. However, Jefferies lags BBs in non-energy exits.
I know this is a lot of information, but hopefully it is helpful.
Pretty good list. Agree with pretty much everything. I would probably move MS to the same tier as CS, but maybe I just don’t know enough about them.
Someone also mentioned earlier that CIBC has had some success recently. I agree and would probably put them to tier 4b and move Ray J down to tier 5.
Also, feel like I’ve seen some activity from HL. I think 4a might make sense for them.
Kinda nitpicking but thought I’d give my 2¢
If anyone works in Houston, can you send me a PM
Ive heard a couple times now that JPMs Houston group is bad. Why exactly is that?
"bad" is vague lol they're obviously killing it on the league tables but i think what you've heard is probably in reference to the office -allegedly- being a sweatshop, having a weird/bad culture, and extremely shitty bonuses if you're bottom bucket
It leads the league table but it’s bad bad. I have heard confirmed stories of people throwing stuff like mouses etc. at other people during talks/arguments and it’s also extremely toxic. Since Jonathan Cox has taken over group it’s become extremely good in terms of deal flow but extremely toxic (went from lifestyle to sweatshop). Not to mention the extremely low bonuses. If you wanna work the same amount of hours might as well go to Jefferies or Evercore where you’ll get paid well for it.
fuck me. I am trying to jump into JPMs IB and Houston is my best shot.
Don’t overlook Piper Sandler. They have a couple rainmaker MDs and I’ve heard comp is strong. Seems like a lot of their analysts place in non-energy PE as well since they do a lot of service/equipment/industrial type deals as well as renewables.
Have never heard strong comp numbers from them since the merger
Yea have tons of friends there and believe now they basically pay lower mm comp after all the mergers even though they do some quality deals and actually have some momentum now. Not the prestige they once had when it was just Simmons and private
well they gave a 1st year analyst a 12k bonus lmao - this was for jpm, replied to wrong post.
Is there any shop in Houston that isn’t a complete sweatshop but still provides solid deal experience and comp? I’m at a target in Cali and genuinely considering Houston IB since on a net basis being in Texas you’re probably raking cash compared to IB in any other city but every top shop I’ve heard of seems to be extremely sweaty? Is this just the nature of things across all IB rn given WFH and M&A activity or am I just naively grouping Houston in this bucket only? Not opposed to energy at all given the current landscape and potential transition work.
You have an uphill battle coming from Cali unless you’re at Stanford
Houston groups are smaller hence the sweat. When 1 person leaves it tends to be a heavy workload to split unless you’re at Citi or one or the larger headcount banks
What do weekends typically look like at some of the sweatier htx shops? Do you atleast get time off friday night or saturday night to go out, take care of house chores or is it just a grind throughout
I think the good energy shops are more sweaty given how technical Energy is. Just like how most of the FIG groups are very sweaty, energy is pretty technical because the modeling can get more complex, specially for Upstream (which is the most active vertical). All the groups handle modelling internally, so there is no M&A team to send the model off to. Plus, a lot of the top groups also integrate a lot of tech team work into their decks (a tech team usually consists of geologists, a mapping team, petroleum engineers etc.). So that leads to a very large team of people working on any particular deal (your IB/CF team of up to 4-6 people plus a tech team of a similar size). With that many people there is a lot of back and forth - which obviously adds more work on your plate.
The only shops you would want to be at would be sweaty but that is just the nature of the work.
To answer your second question: You do get time to do household chores on the weekend and also at the end of Friday so its not like you are stuck to your computer. But some weekends have more work than others so that variability will always be there.
They all stink
This is true and Houston gets the worst talent. I noticed someone said they got BX/APO/KKR after EVC Houston, but I really find it hard to believe how these firms are willing to let go all that great talent in NYC for some of the worst bankers in the US working in a shrinking industry.
You do realize that an analyst who’s completed two years at a top shop in HOU is gonna be far ahead in terms of their skillset than an NY banker who’s been working with the run of the mill companies and sending off work to the M&A team right?
The attitude that you have just reeks of entitlement and you being angry that a firm is recruiting who they think is the best instead of giving your sorry ass an offer. The groups that you talk about are some of the top revenue generating groups for a lot of the firms (Jefferies, Evercore, Citi, PWP, JPM all count their energy groups as their top groups from a $ perspective).
As an anecdotal example, during my training before I hit the desk, my Houston class and I were far ahead all the NY kids we had in our groups.
While you call the HOU bankers some of the worst I am sure you won’t have one iota of data to backup your statement. Put a HOU banker up against an NY and we’ll see who comes up ahead.
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