Top A&D Offices
Hi everyone, as a prospect very interested in the A&D industry, can anyone shine some light on which firms and offices are strongest in the space?
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For most firms, A&D is included within the Industrials group, such as the BB I'm at. That being said, there are some banks with offices or groups that focus on ADG that I know of, that at least based on my experience in the industry are pretty strong.
Lazard LA - Focuses heavily on ADG. Very strong in the sub-$2B space. Know some people in the office and they're all a delight to interact with. I believe they were the joint sell-side advisor on the $4.5B KKR-Atlantic Aviation deal recently.
Jefferies - ADG Group is split between CLT and NY, with the group head sitting in CLT I believe. Also very strong in the mid-cap and UMM space. Heard great things about culture there. I think the group is much stronger on space, defense, and gov than commercial aviation, but they were the sole buy-side advisor on the KKR-Atlantic Aviation deal so maybe not.
Baird - An ADG powerhouse in the MM space.
HL - An absolute volume shop, much like the rest of HL's M&A platform. They do a lot of deals but stay in the LMM-MM space, and I don't think I've ever seen us compete against them unlike the other firms listed (my BB does anything from UMM to mega-cap), so transaction sizes are probably a step down from the other firms.
PWP does a lot of business with the big 5 defense contractors
Winning mandates with the “primes” (largest American defense contractors) is a bloodbath with no standout bank. Generally GS and MS do quite well as you’d expect, but balance sheet banks like Citi and JPM win their fair share of deals with their financing capabilities. EBs aren’t as common, but on the EB side, Evercore and CVP are arguably the strongest, with PWP having a decent presence as well. Lazard and Jefferies rarely represent the primes, but they’re often advising the sell-side when primes are acquiring mid-cap or UMM companies.
Isn't Jefferies the legacy Quarterdeck platform? I'd expect them to be pretty strong if so.
Funnily enough, the Jefferies ADG team today shares no personnel or DNA from the Quarterdeck platform they acquired. Quarterdeck was the top platform in the MM, but rumor was that Jefferies wanted to scale up the ADG team and Quarterdeck's seniors weren't performing, so one-by-one Jefferies replaced Quarterdeck's seniors, first with senior hires from GS, and then with WF's ADG team. I believe currently or at one point or another, the ADG teams at Lazard, Stifel, and HL were co-headed by the ex-Jefferies Quarterdeck seniors, and HL ADG's platform today resembles the "true" Quarterdeck platform the most out of any ADG team.
How's the ADG teams at other MMs like Stifel, HW, RJ?
Who are the top groups for ADG in the Washington DC area? Does anybody have an insight on this?
The two previous strongest UMM-Mid-Cap ADG groups (Laz and Jef) have moved out of the DC area. Now I believe Baird is the strongest MM-UMM office still based in DC/Nova and HL is the strongest LMM-MM office. Other noteworthy offices include KippsDeSanto (LMM-MM), HW (MM, half the group sits in Richmond, relatively new and still expanding).
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