Toronto boutique investment banks
It's hard to find up to date and current data on boutique IB's in Toronto. Does anyone have any insight into comp, hours, reputation, etc. ?What are the some of the best boutiques (besides canaccord) and which ones should one avoid?
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For the Canadian independents it’s tough since GMP got bought since that was pretty great. I’d say Cormark is your best bet after Canaccord, then you have roughly similar lots of Haywood / Paradigm / Infor / etc.
A lot depends on your desired exit opps though. Normally I’d say stay away from Gravitas / Firepower, but maybe you want to roll up sub 1M in revenue businesses. CPPIB won’t look at you, but maybe you like the risk reward.
Comp is hard to say and is more tied to certain industries. You get your bonus more frequently, but most of the P&L is from mining, crypto, cannabis / that stuff. They don’t have balance sheets so it’s not offset by expansive DCM capacities in lulls.
For hours, idk man. That’s so group dependent wherever you go
How’re the comp and exit opps at a Cormark/Infor/Haywood type shop?
Base is below market, and bonuses are dependent on deal flow. I’ve heard that it can be near market in boom times - think working at a smaller firm like Clarus or M Partners during the cannabis boom.
Exit opps are usually to a bigger name bank. With that being said, it’s Toronto. If you network your ass off anything is possible. Just check where seniors have been. If you’re working under someone that spent time at a BB and then opened up shop in the LMM space, you’ll still get good training.
As always, acardboardmonkey gives good color. The post by the anon VP is also spot on.
Comp is below big 5 but hours too. Bonus can be hit or miss. Very very much firm dependent.
Exit opps vary. Have seen analysts/associates go big 5, BB, pension PE, growth, private debt, the whole 9 yards. Smaller teams really give you solid deal reps but you'll want to be a bit picky because not all deal exp is sellable to lateral upwards.
Some are basically ECM shops but there is a lot of distinction here as well. There is a very heavy junior mining focus so do your research if that doesn't interest you. Especially amongst the smaller shops.
For good experience, I'd suggest finding ones that do a mix of advisory and capital markets and have a stable of bankers from big names.
As a place to intern, I think the best approach is to summer at one of these your sophomore year and leverage that exp for a big 5 or US bank summer your junior year. That's what most of my interns have done.
Incredibly accurate, did a year in MM IB with a junior mining focus and the ECM shop description is accurate. Outsized portion of the work supports the ECM / Financing side of the business and the M&A work isn't much more interesting. Zero complexity or creativity in the job, just mass-marketing garbage companies with assets that won't ever produce.
Hours on average better but found seniors less respectful of evenings and weekends and create artificial deadlines on internal deliverables because it's "investment banking". Obviously group specific, but found seniors had a relatively large disconnect with the general sentiment of the broader street.
Despite all of this you do get very direct experience and are able to speak to the process very competently, I lateralled to a BB (not the mining group) and had offers in hand/incoming from several Big 5 and Larger Boutique banks. I work many more hours now but enjoy it a lot more.
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Think 8 Capital and Bloom Burton (for healthcare) are decent shops. Would stay away from the LMM IBs; they're basically boiler rooms / business brokers. Easiest way to spot a bucket shop is to look at the seniors' experience. If they haven't done years of banking with several marquee deals at a reputable shop, caveat emptor - they're just salesmen hustling small business owners into a sale or acquisition often because those business owners don't know any better. That said, if you can't get a job at any of the better shops, might as well go for one of these bucket shops and lateral to somewhere.
Can you give some examples of these LMM boiler rooms ?
Bench Capital
Firepower
Would these LMM IBs be okay for sophomores to do a summer at to help for B5 recruiting?
Definitely better than not having an internship.
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I'm curious about how Echelon is viewed. They seem to do a lot of ECM.
Caveat this with not being disrespectful or derogatory, we are all colleagues at the end of the day. Their flow is mostly ECM and distribution is heavily retail.
Emphasize that this is not specific to Echelon. The the upside to retail heavy distribution is steady volume and in-house distribution through wealth management, i.e., no hitting up institutional accounts and doing the dance. The downsides are a lot of deals/companies an institutional investor won't touch and you're almost never competitive to lead unless it's one of those companies only retail would play in. In the mid/small caps, it's advantageous to have at least one in the syndicate with heavy retail to round out the book but they are almost never the lead for quality names.
I frankly don't like this kind of financing heavy work. You're not doing the modeling/pitching type work because most of this universe knows they need capital and hire you set terms/pricing and go execute. It's interesting the first few times but ultimately you're just shithousing around agency/underwriting agreements and termsheets with your/issuer counsel and shit like that. In my opinion, it's a "nice to know" rather than a critical skill for junior bankers.
What are base and bonus figures like at places like these? Any specific numbers / ranges?
Interested as well
Firepower is pure trash.
Why exactly?
Nothing but 5'2" incel manlets
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Move to America. You’re welcome.
It’s looking like the move to make ngl.
Had a buddy intern at Blair Franklin. Said it was pretty good experience. Their website's dealflow seemed pretty good back in 2019.
Does anyone have any specific data points regarding comp? Other than just "street" or "market".
Afaik street for big 5 + national is $100 to $105 (could be $110 on the upper?)
I know that RBC and National AN1 base is 95k CAD.
Generally speaking, the bulk of independents mentioned in this thread are very heavily ECM focused with fairly limited M&A exposure / experience. Headcount is relatively tough to pin down but most of the shops are >20 professionals. Very few of the boutiques outside of Fort Capital, INFOR and Origin have a strong M&A practice and are well diversified outside of mining / crypto / cannabis. The middle market these firms go after is very fragmented, with the banks having limited focus on it (though National seems to be making a push, same with RBC) and bulk of the competition being other boutiques or Big 4 CF groups.
Hours vary and the concept of "banking is banking" applies, though from what I've seen the hours are better than the big shops; most of the smaller firms don't have any official policies around lifestyle so mileage will vary
Comp is likely market at the analyst level ($90K - $95K base, $150K or so all in), beyond that, comp really diverges away from the more established names (big 5, NBF and CG), though can still get some attractive economics as you can get a cut of the fees (some of the boutiques have some sort of equity program for their professional teams or allow the deal teams to get a direct cut of the fee)
What about left lane associates? They seem to do a lot of M&A
have never heard of them, would lump in the category of bucket shop from above
Interviewed with them this past summer and got to the final round before getting dinged. Seemed odd that every interview was a 4 or 5-on-1. They market themselves as focusing on Supply Chain M&A, but I never got to a comp discussion.
As the above commenter stated when it comes to bucket shops, most of the guys there have no prior M&A experience. Their president went from Bus Dev to M&A, and most of them have little to no prior experience outside of Left Lane. Also, the fact that most of their job titles are just "Investment Banker" sounds cringe and unprofessional".
ATB is another solid boutique with a focus on cannabis and energy. Not sure about exit opps though
Not really a traditional boutique though. ATB is owned by the province of Alberta and has a decent balance sheet. Given ownership, it is Alberta focused and doesn’t have many people outside of the province.
It uses to be altacorp and they closed deals. Very reputable.
What do u guys think of IJW & Co.?
I like it
best culture on street
Not a bucket shop?!
Avoid the no name boutiques. They tend to have slimy owners who tend to pick and choose who gets a bonus or not, I.E, M Partners, Firepower come to mind. I would go for more established boutiques like Paradigm, Cormark, Eight Capital etc., Go for places run by ex bankers and not places with tacky sales guys who decided one day to open up an “investment bank” when they’re actually just forcing you to post tacky LinkedIn posts all day doing out reach to owners convincing them to sell their business LMFAO.
Check out Osprey Capital. By far the most recognized and respected in the space - especially for the mid-market.
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