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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Yeah they’re pretty rough too. Friend on that team is regularly up til 2am on primarily pitches that go nowhere