82 Comments
 

If real: before re-recruiting would think long and hard about what in your calls might've lead you to being placed in a group you didn't want to be placed in. I think that self-reflection will help you massively in figuring out your interviewing weaknesses. I am not sure the tech team at UBS works much, so you should have more than enough time to nail your FT recruiting. 

 

Wouldn’t assume there’s a rhyme or reason or it’s their fault. Maybe God just hates him/her. 

 

Breathed a deep sigh of relief not seeing Tech/M&T/M&A (or literally anything that isn’t LF/IND/C&R)

 

Am at UBS; This is just false. FIG at UBS is a glorified financing group (particularly with a lot of fintech leveraged finance work). 100+ hours are normal despite no deal flow outside of financings. Exits are mostly to a plethora of FIG-specific MM's and maybe 1 person in a 8-10 person analyst class exits to a UMM fund working in FIG. It's not the worst group in the bank because M&A and M&T exist, but would be the worst or among the worst in most banks. 

 

I would avoid FIG at all costs. I have a friend who is an analyst there who has told me horror stories about the new head of the team there and the culture. Sweatiest team at UBS and its all for pitchwork and RCF renewals. There is really no M&A no matter vertical you get into. The culture is apparently extremely toxic as well because of the guy who runs the team there now and his junior team. Heard there's also a Director there who is pretty brutal and unprofessional. All the good CS junior bankers that came over left within 6 months if that tells you anything

 

All the rainmaker CS SENIOR bankers left in first 6 months as well - had some really good MDs in banks and insurance who left and the group hasn’t been the same since 

 
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The above is unfortunately all very true. It’s beyond sweaty (consecutive 100+ hr weeks not uncommon and there have even been 120-130 hour weeks in the group in past 2 years). Currently, analysts have an excessive workload largely consisting of heavy pitches, LF lead left financings, refis etc with almost no M&A.

Culture is extremely toxic/political/broken and it comes from the top. There is absolutely no regard for the safety or wellbeing of analysts/associates.

There are multiple bad apples among EDs and Ds who are beyond terrible to junior bankers, meaning it’s virtually impossible as an analyst to escape working for brutal, unprofessional, incompetent or awful people.

Excluding MDs, ~40% of the group is now international/on some sort of visa, which underscores the fact that almost every good American junior banker leaves/has left because their experience is so bad and the only people who stay are the ones who can’t leave due to their visa situation.

If you’re an intern, go in with your eyes open, see what’s going on, and don’t ignore the red flags.

 

No, probably single worst group in the bank though think M&T might rival it. Most of people leave to LMM PE at best if they can get something, most mid-levels are extremely toxic, and the hours are horrible. 

 

M&A is a total nightmare in terms of working hours and culture. It’s so sweaty and the mid levels are so toxic. They also don’t even have good deal flow, a lot of the work stems from extremely inefficient and psycho mid levels + seniors. Like many groups at UBS, the juice simply isn’t worth the squeeze. M&A is probably the worst group to join. 

 

LevFin is not the best group. You don't really get any opportunities for anything outside of MM PE, and not even the more well-known MM names. I had initally been under the false assumption that people willingly choose PC. It might be true, but have realized it's also just because there is significantly less opportunity for PE from LevFin at UBS. All you really do is internal credit memo's with a lot of detail, not really relevant for anything else except PC. PC is a terrible industry to join right now as the bubble is popping right now with the bust of software leveraged loans. 

 

Good group although highly political - huge variance in outcomes based on how people play politics 

 

Got M&T despite not ranking them high. I may just renege and not show up.

 

Reneging doesn’t matter with this team. They aren’t well connected on Wall Street anyways

 

Probably 3rd best group behind industrials and LF, although they have conducted junior layoffs recently so RO rate might be low

 

Does Sponsors do real work or are they the relationship managers? Also, why do we have a better WLB? Do we not have deal flow? Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

 they are the relationship managers - what this means on a junior level is they have better WLB because the juniors barely do any work on deals relative to other groups. Ie if there’s a deck of 25 slides, product and coverage groups do 24 and sponsors does 1.  They do have deal flow and so you get to take credit for deals despite not doing jack shit. Overall pretty good deal but the juniors and their technical skills skew weak as they are not getting real reps. 

 

They don’t do shit. Sponsors get to take credit for a lot of deals despite their minimal contributions. Comp to hours worked is quite good. Not a bad place to be relative to some of the other nightmare groups at UBS. 

 

There is no real reason to leave sponsors; they work 50 hours a week for the same pay as other investment bankers. It's a great seat to earn a lot of money with good WLB and decent people. They don't really have exits, but not sure people try much for exits. Sponsors is also a terrible group to join becaues they have laid off analysts recently.

 

Not the worst group in terms of hours/culture but not good either. deal flow is quite weak. 

 

Good luck to interns in UBS trying to get return offers. Most groups aren't anywhere near budget, so doubt they will get a lot of spots for returns. Most groups have far too many juniors for their deal flow. Most analysts at UBS cannot exit since they don't have deal flow, so it's not as if there's a need for more juniors either. 

 

Put otherwise, don’t start your career in a sinking ship. And if you don’t get a return offer, that might end up being a good thing because you don’t have to work at UBS. Recruit for lateral FT if you can.

 

Hope you are good at politics and aligning yourself to the right people. Some juniors there seem to never work and others are always working. 

 

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