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Question. Which firms have the best stand-alone financial sponsor groups that are not necessarily part of a leveraged finance group? Background details would be very helpful as well. I am sure the usual suspects, GS, MS, JPM, etc come up but I am looking for the extra level of detail, i.e. someone who worked there or know someone who works there.
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GS sponsors wasn't all that awesome the last I heard. I got the impression they were pitch heavy - model light. I think this has improved, but it is still far from their best grup.
I would say CS sponsors has been pretty dominant historically, but I don't know how they hve been the last couple of years.
MS sponors is good, but again, not their best group.
JPM has one of the best on the street, but SLF is more modelling intensive according to my memory.
Not in sponsors, so I am just going off of second hand info. It's a hard sector to evaluate just because deal flow has slowed so much.
West Coastin' yeah thanks for the info. Thats definitely the general assumptions on the board. JPM SLF is great because of their Lev.Fin (which are combined I believe). CS is definitely known for their sponsors team from a historical perspective. I am thinking less modelling and more relationships and dealflow. No desire to go to PE.
Citi's was historically very strong, but their strength was due, at least in part, to pitching access to leverage. Not sure how they've fared recently.
Interned at a BB FSG last summer. I heard BofA FSG and JPM FSG thrown around alot as "top."
CS Sponsors is probably still the highest-regarded sponsors group, and a top group on Wall Street in general.
GS FSG is decent but not top-notch, in part because sponsors sometimes view GS as a competitor due to PIA.
At MS, FSG is probably the second-most sought after group among incoming analysts after M&A.
The sponsors groups at BAML, Citi, and JPM seem good, but I can't speak from personal experience.
I recognize the OP is probably a first-year analyst by now, but in general if someone is not interested in working in PE, I wouldn't recommend a sponsors group as his/her top choice. You'll get a better and broader experience in a good industry coverage group that does its own M&A (e.g., any of the GS coverage groups, MS CMG, etc.), or in an outright M&A group or boutique.
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Top Financial Sponsors Groups (Originally Posted: 11/27/2009)
Which banks have the best financial sponsors groups on the street, post-crisis? Any thoughts on current activity in the space and how busy the groups are? Good place to be going forward if desire is to exit into megafund PE? I know this has been discussed before, but I thought it'd be nice to get an updated perspective given the recent uptick in PE activity.
Would love to get thoughts on CS and MS, specifically.
Mod edit: Search dude
Very curious about this question as well
If someone can elaborate further on the hourly requirement of the financial sponsors groups as well, that would be appreciated.
Also, is there a lot of modeling done for this group?
BUMP!
bump
There were at least 3 threads on this in the past two weeks. Use the search function.
CS and GS have excellent FSG groups. FS is usually wrapped around with Lev Fin.
I still believe, 8 out of 10 times, that the bank you work for is more important than the group.
Top Banks for Sponsors (Originally Posted: 01/26/2016)
I've been trying to figure out what the top banks for sponsors/LBO-financing are and I've been having trouble finding actual information. I keep seeing CS/Jefferies in the news but is there any current information on what the best sponsors banks are?
bump
I'd say top are JPM, CS, Barclays, BAML, Jefferies. In no partcular order. I'm definitely missing a couple.
From my understanding CS has a strong reputation- possibly the best on the street from the BBs?- because it's very aggressive with how it uses leverage. I have heard good things about BAML and JPM Sponsors as well, from current analysts. I also 'believe' MS Sponsors is pretty good based on the people I talked to in that group during OCR, but I am not 100% sure.
Jefferies leads in LBO financing BC they are not subject to the same leverage restrictions as the "too big to fail" depository banks.
Does anyone have insight into the west coast FSG groups? Particularly CS, MS, BAML, Barclays
BAML and JPM will hands down be your best bets for top tier sponsor deals. Even with its smaller balance sheet, you do see quite a bit of GS with the top tier sponsors too. Add in MS. I've personally only ever seen Jefferies once on one of my deals and they were far from lead left. CS is decent, but my view is they do a lot of very mid-market heavy sponsor deals. I do see them on a fair few top sponsor deals but never as lead lefts.
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