Thoughts on William Blair?
Considering William Blair London office but have heard some awful stories. Anyone at Blair can confirm what culture is like now?
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What the fuck did I just read
What did he say?
🤣🤣
I left a few months ago by choice. I can confirm that it's horrid...without going into details. Mass exits by senior team, people leaving for Lincoln / Moelis / Houlihan and basicaly just anywhere else. FSG was cut by 70%. Culture is non-existent...lots of leadership changes as well and it's a sh*tshow at the moment. Oh and did I mention they don't pay their people?
what region? west coast, midwest, or east coast
Drl
Not specific to London, but WB is a sinking ship due to mismanagement by the partner group. Massively increased fixed costs during the M&A boom of 2021-2022 via extensive office buildouts, significant partner hiring with guaranteed comp, etc., all with a highly cyclical business model that is dependent on sponsor activity with very small presence in diversified products like ECM, DCM, and restructuring. issue was compounded because partners historically swept all free cash flow leaving no cushion for strategic initiatives, especially in down periods.
This all came to a head during last year’s bonuses which were abysmal, even despite major layoffs to right size costs. Curious to see if they can turn it around in the coming years, but ultimately last couple years exposed a fundamentally short-sighted and brittle business model.
Del
2023 was an awful year for WB. Everything bad you read about WB on these forums and others was likely true and it was probably a lot worse than just that. Changes were implemented and they have taken (or are starting to take) affect. Did people leave by choice or otherwise? Yes. Did the bank pay absolutely bottom of the street? Yes. However. YTD WB has advised on nearly as many $1B+ EV deals as it did in 2021 (and that was a lot). Nearly every group accomplished its original budget for 2024 by July and most have surpassed the upwards revision as well. Will WB pay 'at least' street levels this year? More than likely. Will that be enough to change the negative sentiment junior bankers and the rest of the internet has? Only time will tell.
The fact that 2024 will be street/slightly above (e.g., back to normal) doesn't excuse the mismanagement over the last ~4 years. They have shown their true colours.
They stopped supplying Zyn’s in the snack room due to budget cuts. The banker bags are now plastic “to-go” bags as well. Take this information as you will, but you’ve been warned on WB.
If anyone knows - I applied to bridge to IB last year and they had a panel of female bankers present at the event. I tried to reach out to a few last month and they all left lol…London office they were senior bankers too and junior. Curious what happened and if other banks are losing female bankers too - someone from WB please chime in?
Del
As an observation - the WB praising on WSO for the past 10 years always gave me a weird vibe.
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