UBS Exits 2026
Interned at UBS and got a return offer from a top group. Trying to figure out if I should recruit out or not given my goal is to go into the buyside. I have no interest in MF PE, but still would like to become an investor. There was no talk about exits from the analysts while I interned, so not sure what they look like.
What are UBS exits looking like now for the class that started in 2024 or 2025? The last I could find information from is 2025. Wondering if I should expect similar level of exit opps or is it worse now? If it is worse, what do exits look like for the current 2nd year analyst class?
Copy-pasting a previous post I found for 2025 exits (class that started their banking stint in 2023):
LevFin: Ares PC, KLS, Oaktree PC, L Catterton PC
Industrials: Veritas, GA, 26 North (Josh Harris's firm)
Tech: PSG, HIG, FP, Serent, and Siris (first 3 are NYC Tech and later 2 are SF)
HC: Arsenal, Odyssey
M&A: Fisher Lynch Capital, Infinedi, Clarion Capital Partners, F3 Partners, and THL
FIG: Neuberger Berman and Stone Point
Consumer: Platnium Equity
FSG: BX PC
London TMT to PAI partners
You get paid more in banking than at PAI
Yeah but I don’t think comp is really the point.
PE has a completely different risk/reward profile. You actually get to be the buyer, underwrite the investment, make decisions and ultimately be accountable for the outcome, with much more exposure to ownership and strategy.
PAI also does mega deals and offers a clear path to VP / Investment Officer. So getting paid more in banking doesn’t necessarily make it the better career proposition imo
You’ll be better off almost anywhere else
.
I am trying to get a gauge of what is a reasonable outcome from UBS for buy-side, so I can determine if it makes sense for me to recruit at another bank for FT or not. I actually thought the people were quite nice, but want to make sure I can get a solid MM/UMM buyside exit from UBS at the very least.
Reasonable outcome is LMM PE
I never work at UBS and will probably receive a bunch of MS saying this, but it seems that the PE placement is better than most middle market banks. The only MM bank that can potentially beat UBS is JEFF, even WF/HL don’t place that well.
WF gets decent exits and is better cash comp for analysts with less brain damage. As an analyst who recently exited to something mid from a pretty awful group at UBS, I would just not recommend UBS overall as an analyst unless your alternatives are much worse.
It doesn't seem like most people have updated their Linkedin for the class that entered in 2024 or 2025, so this question is pretty much impossible to answer unless you have color into every group at UBS. Am curious what you define as a mid-exit out of UBS from a terrible group. Would have thought those groups had no exits or LMM PE at best. as that's what the last year exits from M&T and M&A would imply.
WF is paradise
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Historical UBS exits reflect legacy Credit Suisse groups, pre-merger deal flow, favorable recruiting markets, or analysts who succeeded despite, rather than because of, the platform. “Better than most MMs” is a forward-looking statement based on vibes and is subject to material risks, including declining deal experience, shrinking bonuses, questionable group quality, and the possibility that Jefferies, HL, or Wells Fargo candidates actually know what’s involved in announcing and closing a deal. Please consult an actual placement list before investing two years of your life.
wouldn’t take Jeff over UBS
Jeff you will get sweated but at least you’ll get real deal experience
We've interviewed UBS candidates for off-cycle and on-cycle at my large UMM fund, and have been left unimpressed. The analysts there seem to have a clear lack of deal experience compared to those at top BB/EB or even MM candidates. It would be okay for exits if on-cycle were still during training, but it has been moved back after how horrible on-cycle went 2 years ago.
Will the top decile of UBS candidates land top offers they are happy with? Probably, especially since it seems like they still get interviews. I would strongly recommend lateraling or recruiting for a different Full-Time offer. You might end up at similar shops as the top analyst at UBS, but the experience gap matters when you actually start in PE. Plus, everyone I know from legacy CS there says culture and pay has gone down the drain.
Edit: reading some of this thread and the numbers seem off. If 2 people from weak groups are getitng UMM+ outcomes and groups are 5-8 people, that implies a 25 - 40% rate of UMM exits from a weak UBS group. The median exit even from GS/MS/JPM isn't usually UMM, I highly doubt this is true for UBS America's given where the franchise is or people are not correctly defining UMM fund.
My PE firm stopped recruiting from UBS even though some of our portfolio companies use UBS. We interviewed several analysts in the last couple years and weren’t impressed. They struggled with easy things they should have known, thing like walking from enterprise value to equity value, explaining working-capital adjustments, modeling debt paydown / cash sweep, and discussing how specific diligence findings affected valuation or deal terms. They also couldn’t clearly explain what they personally did on their own deals. The gap versus candidates from top BBs, EBs, and even stronger MMs was very obvious and sounded like they weren’t very busy and had few to no deal reps. They’re still bright and motivated kids, it’s just sounded almost no meaningful execution experience and we don’t want to spend our time training them.
This list is really wrong don’t trust OP he’s making up exits and probably works in Hr
I am an intern who found this list on a previous WSO post.I just want to get a sense of whether I should take the return offer or recruit out if my goal is the middle market or upper middle market PE.
If your goal is PE, I’d strongly reconsider UBS. Talk to your mentors outside of the UBS bubble.
UBS interns hate to break it to you but almost all of you will not be top bucket nor have a chance at PE. You will also likely spend your first year with 0 deals, as any of the few deals will likely go to second years.
The biggest myth in banking is that you’ll automatically get top bucket if you try
The biggest myth in banking is UBS is a BB
If you all think UBS deal flow is bad just wait till they fire all of these bum MDs, and replace them with a full slate of new MDs with guarantees. They’ll have no motivation their first year
we need more guaranteed bonuses to new MDs. Preferably MDs coming from Barclays!
You do all realize that if it’s 2025 exits who almost exclusively recruited in 2023, and this represents both UBS and Credit Suisse analysts classes. We’re talking 120-150 people in this pool of analysts.
Yeah that means less than 20% back then and given recent underperformance would expect a 5-10% chance. Thats the “my dad is a principal at X PE fund and that’s why I landed it” type rate
probably fair to say ~20% of UBS analysts have good exits, ~40% have mid exits, ~25% have bad exits, 15% have no exits
Some of the names you listed are factually incorrect and have never been UBS exits.
Even if the rest are accurate, I don’t think UBS analysts will achieve exits of anywhere near that caliber going forward (based on # UMM exits you listed). The first-year analysts I know there have received almost no deal experience and have not even prepared any bake-off materials
Straight talk - If you’re an intern with a return offer, you are very lucky for 2 reasons.
1) Because you can use the return offer as leverage to get a new offer somewhere better and can renege on it.
2) Because you have the knowledge of others telling you that UBS IB is a suboptimal place to start your career relative to its American IB peers.
I would honestly kill to go back in time and be able to get an offer at another bank so I didn’t have to waste the first two years of my career in this shithole. I would be on a meaningfully better trajectory if I hadn’t done UBS.
UBS ib not top group or JPM Asset management? Debating and don’t want to go into PE later, just want prestige and experience to open up more opportunities.
would take UBS LF/GIG/Sponsors/CPR over JPM
would not take UBS M&T, FIG, M&A, RELL over JPM AM simply because of how bad those groups are
Congrats on UBS!
Just to clarify my question: I am asking if the exits in that list are reflective of expectations from top UBS groups. If I am upper-mid bucket or top-bucket from a top group, how reasonable it is for me to get an offer from a UMM-type firm? I understand M&A, FIG, M&T, etc. have weak exits, but I am not asking about those groups.
Unrealistic to expect that as an outcome.
If you have target school and 3.9+ GPA and do on-cycle, probably achievable.
Any advice for achieving that exit for on-cycle coming from UBS given the bank's overall lack of deal flow?
Statistically you won’t be top bucket so you should never assume that. Even if you are the smartest and hardest working, office politics determines buckets and whether the MD you align yourself to has any pull and deal flow.
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