UBS Coverage Groups
I am a prospect looking at UBS coverage groups in the US for placement. I don't want to do leveraged loans, so not particularly interested in sponsors or LevFin due to no interest in private credit exits. I am more interested by potential corporate or maybe even PE exits, thus looking for coverage groups.
I understand that Industrials is the best coverage group and that FIG is second if I have any interest in financials. I am wondering what are 3rd or 4th choices. From the commentary on UBS it seems like Healthcare and Consumer would be next, but deal flow there has historically been bad and has supposedly slightly improved from there on. A) Which group would you say is better, if either is the 3rd best group, and B) Which one has more momentum with actual deal flow/mandates won internally? I am also wondering what people think about the M&A group as a group to consider after Industrials and FIG.
Avoid Tech.
Run away from all things Tech or Media and Telecoms (since they could merge in the future)
Thanks, picked up on that reading in that large UBS Tech thread. Do you have any thoughts as to the other groups as I will still have to go through the placement process and figure I might as well get into as good of a group as possible so I can either lateral firms or at least get into a good group to where I hopefully have some level of optionality to leave. Thanks so much for your help!
I would put Consumer over HC for now given recent leadership changes on HC. On more deal flow, I would say HC probably on a deal count perspective but consumer on total deal volume, will work on much larger things on Consumer. M&A could be an option too if you are that concerned about deal flow. You’ll get reps there but it will be on random verticals that might not interest you, and lots of clerical process such as handling the data room
LevFin > Financial Sponsors > GIG > FIG >Terrible drop off and every other group is a joke
He’s back
All Rise, bronzebomba is back from the dead
Are the other groups that bad to where I simply should not consider them? From the stuff I saw online the Consumer and HC teams at the very least have some deal flow so was wondering. Also I don't really have an interest in the credit stuff or PC stuff, rather want to get into a corporate strategy type role or maybe even PE thus my hesitation for going for LevFin/Sponsors.
The person mentioned they want corporate exits, LevFin isn't great in that instance. LevFin has great PC exits, probably the best in the firm but the PE exits leave a decent bit to be desired comparatively. For PE exits would say FSG>LevFin=Industrials>FIG. For corporates would say: GIG>>FIG>HC>CR, the gap between GIG and FIG simply being due to the specialized nature of the financials industry comparatively. Wouldn't want to go to LevFin or FSG if your goal is a corporate strategy as mentioned just because it isn't a particularly relevant skillset, much more relevant for buyside roles with UBS LevFin having geuninly great exits into PC and mostly MM with some lower-end UMM ones into PE.
UBS fig lost a bunch of key MDs. Industrials is still great / massive group
From what I read earlier it was a singular insurance MD, can you confirm how many/what was lost. How would you evaluate FIG now compared to other groups? I know that the other groups also have a few rainmakers like some dude named Levin that keeps getting mentioned in the threads about consumer, so am wondering how FIG now compares to the other groups?
Legacy UBS Insurance MD left. The two CS insurance MDs also left. One MD in Banks left
They lost their entire senior insurance team MD/EDs. That vertical went bust with everyone going to different places.
Bumping
Bump, would love a more comprehensive answer please.
Whats not comprehensive? Ask a more specific question
How would you rank the best groups at UBS if the goal is corporate exits for PE exits and why? Ideally including as many of them as possible. It's been answered everywhere that LevFin/Sponsors seem are the best groups followed by GIG and FIG, but those two groups aren't particularly relevant to corporate exits given their nature.
Curious about the healthcare team at UBS (culture, deal flow, hours)
Decent in the sub 1Bn space with very few wins outside of that. Better to think about it as an MM franchise that manages to play up rarely. They do still pitch/try for the >1Bn stuff, but they rarely win them. With that being said, some deals closed and more mandates were won in the past few months. Not a terrible place to be as a junior; you'll get some deal reps across products and should be able to at least get on 1 MM M&A deal and a few lead-left LevFin ones. Leadership seemingly has chosen a "take everything you're approached about or can get on" approach and this has led to the pipeline and mandates won to be almost all MM.
Hours is pretty bad given that they do anything and every deal they can be somewhat involved in regardless of size. Nowhere near the worst hours at UBS, that honor belongs to LevFin by a long shot. Culture is pretty solid, most people are nice and seniors aren't terrible. Very solid coverage group especially in the context of UBS, where there are groups with literally 0 flow in all products except things LevFin brings in.
Some drama recently with the old co-head leaving and the head of CR taking over as co-head. More likely to lead to some consumer health deals as the Consumer co-head is really strong and has some relationships there. There also was a bunch of MD hiring in 2024, which is expected to continue.
Edit: Can't confirm this but there was a comment with 10 upvotes saying that UBS America's HC was one of the UBS groups that grew market share. So, despite it seemingly like I was shitting on the industry I suppose it is working. WIll be interesting to see how long they can grow going with primarily MM with like 1 larger-cap deal /if they can start winning bigger deals.
you will mostly do M&A at like sub 250mm range, (and might even do sub 100mm range stuff). Some non left lead financing/equity issuances too.
if you stay too long in the group, you will have issues fitting in at another bulge bracket or EB as you have subpar experience. zero public M&A.
Mostly correct here: A lot of deals are indeed 100-250MM, but not many sub-100MM deals afaik. There are some sub-100MM deals but those are typically sponsor favors. Would say the deal flow for M&A is like 40% 40% 100-250MM and 250-1000MM with the other 20% being mostly large-cap pitches, they very rarely win large-cap pitches, think they were in like 1 large-cap last year and it was a take private by a sponsor last year or the rare sub 100MM stuff. Also by 250-1000MM, it's mostly 250-500MM in EV and not 500MM+. The strategy is pure volume, as I have stated earlier.
To be frank, this is still better than a lot of the other UBS groups. UBS groups like Tech, RE, and M&T have no M&A at all. HC LevFin also does well, though LevFin does most of the more interesting work, but you at least get some level of deal experience. Of course, as you mentioned, not every deal is a lead but you do get a lot of very solid deals where you are the lead in given the UBS business model being dependent on LevFin. ECM is less to write home about than LevFin.
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