Truist: Sweatier Than Ever In 2023
Is it normal to frequently work until 3-4 am every night? No protected weekends... How does that even make sense? I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe...
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What group is this happening in? Hard to imagine
Agreed. Occasional late nights are a thing but most people I know are talking about how slow it is.
Can only be in TMT or HC. Most likely TMT tho. Heard they brought on some rainmaking senior bankers from Wells to spread head their Media / Telecom coverage. A friend from their team is getting crushed.
Is he or she in CLT?
This bank doesn't do any deals lol.
They are the absolute kings of bottom right follow-on offerings. Outside of emailing "Truist is signed off" idk what the heck they do all day.
Never have seen Truist on a real m&a deal or meaningful debt financing. That arm of the bank definetely loses it money.
Super funny
I literally laughed out loud during a call and wasn’t on mute when reading this.
😂 so true. I know a guy that's always pretending like he’s a big time investment banker even though all they do is follow-ons. Like your career is basically I’m the gutter at that point, just accept your fate 😭
My boy at JPM coverage is getting grinded like this…hard to fathom how anyone can stick it out
It’s pretty true. A combo of a few things. The new head of the investment bank has cleaned out a lot of legacy MDs and brought in ones from generally sweatier shops. Those new MDs and group heads now expect Truist to run like a sweaty M&A focused bank and are increasing the M&A and strategic pitches which is an uphill battles because even these heavy hitting MDs are having to sell the Truist name compared to the names of their former banks. The increase in M&A pitches paired with lack of previous M&A exposure at the jr level has further accelerated the sweaty hours. Some groups have had their protected weekend policy changed from Friday at 7pm to Sunday at noon to now Friday at 7pm to Saturday at noon.
General consensus among jrs is grim. We’re now regularly working until 1-2am or later while having weekends / PTO blown up but are still not winning mandates and are not getting the benefit of being positioned for great exits like other sweaty banks so there is not really a trade off happening for the hours.
Definitely had PTO blown up, but I don't get how folks are working those kinds of hours. Maybe a certain office or two comes to mind. Otherwise agree with all of your points.
I think the main driver, for atleast a couple groups I know of, is that the capabilities of analysts and associates vary greatly which leads to the same group of higher performers continuing to get blown up and staffed to max capacity while less capable jrs are coasting with staffings like pulling together PIBs and consolidating product partners pages. So while several teammates have been consistently working til 1-2am or later, weekends, and holidays there are others here that haven’t caught a new staffing in awhile.
Sounds like they better come with the $$$
The lack of exits is concerning. Lateral market sounds dead with layoffs across so many banks and few buyside firms show interest in Truist. I guess at this point the best strategy might be to wait until lateral market is in a better spot? Or maybe try for Aso promote if in less sweaty group? Happy to have job after recent layoffs but still feels like Truist juniors are in an awkward spot for long term career progression.
Totally agree
If you came to Truist expecting to become a BSD on Wall Street, then you should be concerned. There are a few every year who successfully jump to an EB/BB or or make it to the buy side. That ain’t gonna happen right now.
I would encourage most analysts and associates to have perspective / be realistic and also optimistic about their “career progression”. Truist gets shit on but in many groups there is enough deal flow to keep you busy, and the name does carry some weight, if not in the hallowed halls of WSO then around its core markets. You aren’t going to be on the streets begging. Folks jump to other regionals or Atlanta boutiques all the time - Citizens, Regions, etc. and all of those firms are trying to grow their IBD platforms, not shrink right now. An IB analyst position will also give you a leg up into RE, PERE, and Corp Dev as well. We all will be fine.
Do you think that this is an effort, on part of the leadership, to become more of a “traditional” M&A-focused bank, growing and potentially competing with more well-established banks for deals?
And if so, do you think that this is a feasible transition in time, even if it does not bode well for Truist’s analysts at the moment?
Exactly, is a specific goal of management and are making concerted effort to do so. However, pairs curiously with downsizing NYC footprint heavily.
I'm slightly skeptical of it working, although the M&A dealflow is so low relative to other types, AUM, etc. that it can really only go up. That segment of the market is super contested now though and Truist lost a lot of share and MDs to HL and the like post merger and during the pandemic. I don't see why HL and co. won't continue to dominate that space, even if Truist brings a balance sheet to the table.
Congrats you're now a real investment bank, welcome to the industry :)
How is the chicago office? is this just NYC / Atlanta?
OP must be from TMT CLT. Deal experience is dependent on whether you're good. Deal flow is pretty solid if you're good at your job, because you will be solely responsible for execution. Also, what many people don't realize is that M&A execution is built into coverage. But would definitely avoid Truist TMT.
There are plenty of good people that don't get good deal experience given the nature of the deals.
Whatever happened to getting 1 m&a rep then lateraling.
Takes a looooong time
No deals is what happened for many
I have been seeing a lot of TMT Truist post lately. Speaking to my own experience, TMT coverage / SLF provides solid experience to analyst. Obviously you won't be working on any MF and a lot of sell side M&A. But, people often forget how lucrative it is to just be buy side advisor as well. During my time there, I averaged 1 deal a month, and 2-3 M&A deals annually. The only people that cares about prestige is the college student on WSO. Once you come to the real world, you will soon realize no one talks about whether you closed a M&A or debt deal. People only care about how much fees you make on the deal. And, you will be surprised how much fee some of these MD working 40 hours a week are generating. And, like most banks, TMT will always be the most active group no matter which bank you're at. TMT will always be more sweaty than other coverage teams. Once, this down cycle is over, I'm sure they will start to hire more people very fast. Public companies are often very short visioned. Exit is limited but some still exit to great PE shops. Historically STRH analyst have left to Comvest, HIG, Sun Capital and Roark.
People absolutely absolutely care about whether you closed an M&A or a debt deal.
I also don’t know when you worked there or which vertical you were in but that M&A exposure would be an extreme outlier from what I know
Imagine an analyst talking about the amount of fees they brought in their first year lol
Does anyone here working at Truist know how sweaty the Working Capital Solutions team within Truist's Asset Finance division is? Is the Working Capital Solutions team at Truist actually "investment banking" or is it like corporate / commercial banking?
Thanks
.
As someone who worked at STRH for ~3 years, the culture has always been very sweaty and it definitely pre-dates Truist and new management. I’m not trying to oversimplify it, but the bank seems to attract or transform bankers to have a chip on their shoulder. At no other bank have I seen so much overcompensation. I’m talking pages and pages of tombstones and bios, and even the most basic pitch books are over engineered. So much inefficiency is created in their effort to compete with the bigger players.
Couldn't agree more. Where did you end up?
Wow truer words have not been spoken
Deep cut title reference to https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investment-banking/piper-jaffray-sweatier-than-ever-in-2018
This must be STRH TMT CLT lol.
This trending WSO post and the way it makes me feel is what I'd imagine winning a sell-side mandate feels like.
Love,
Ur resident ultra sweaty perspiration nation Truist TMT-er 33
So cringe
Anyone know how Energy is faring?
Yeah they’re pretty rough too. Friend on that team is regularly up til 2am on primarily pitches that go nowhere
Their website hasn't been updated with recent deals and it's somewhat difficult to find what they've done online. Do you have any idea if they're actually on live deals or just hemorrhaging cash? Some people there have said they're investing in energy and new hires (a lot of CS guys last summer) would seem to support that, I just can't find deals they've closed.
Their energy team has sucked for a while - wouldn’t be shocked if they close that office in houston
They literally just brought on a group from CS?
Are these layoffs set?
bump
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