Wells Fargo Leveraged Finance
I know the group has the best deal flow and revenue at WFS. The threads in the board refer to it as the strongest group within Wells; however, my understanding is that Sponsors owns the LBO modeling. I've been told they do high yield and term loan b (mostly refi). With this in mind, would it still be the best group within IB at WFS for an analyst? What would the exit opps be versus industry coverage (Industrials, HCG, E&P, or TMT)?
Not sure, but just wanted to give you some other advice: unless you don't care too much about people figuring out who you are on WSO, change your profile image bro. It's very easy to find your full name just from that
this is interesting
It depends on your goals. If you want PE then a modeling lite group is going to hurt you. If you want to stay in credit and move around within this space I don't think it's an issue. IMO you only need hard core modeling when you're equity or mezz. Or lending to illiquid smaller companies.
I have a bit of first hand knowledge of WF. In terms of exit opportunities, Lev Fin is the best. Sponsors deal flow was disappointing the last I heard and placement pretty bad. Also WF tends to not like to do PE deal due to its "conservative" nature. However, most Lev Fin analysts go to credit shops not PE at WF. Analyst moral was pretty low a few years back because of some placement issues. Industrials does pretty good. TMT was (is?) a sweat shop. Just make sure you don't get so bogged down by work in whatever group you end up in that you miss out on the buyside recruitment cycles. I'm biased to product groups because you get to do more analytical work (relatively speaking).
Tips: 1. Plan your escape early. Do research. Go to recruiters first. Try not to take too much advice from people who will likely be competing for the same jobs as you. 2. Know that if you are in Charlotte recruiting on the east coast (NYC, Boston) will be difficult. 3. Find time to teach yourself LBO modeling if you never see it. 4. There is an internal struggle at WF between placing analysts with good buyside opps vs retaining them. I know that the Lev Fin group is one of the more friendly groups when it comes to letting its analysts go interview and stuff. 5. People who can hustle/network will ALWAYS do better than the people with the largest amount of deal experience and this is taking into account analyst rankings.
If you have more questions PM me. I'm trying to stay as anonymous as possible. LOL
Any exits to HF's?
Yes, plenty. I'd argue that exits from WF Lev Fin to HF are more likely than PE. But to repeat my cautionary tale from earlier, a lot of what happens depends on location and initiative. Don't get me wrong, recruiters do reach out to analysts, but it won't be as many emails as you would get if you worked in Goldman or something. NYC lacks deal flow, but you're in NYC. Charlotte has the deal flow, but it's Charlotte.
please answer WF LevFin (Originally Posted: 10/02/2012)
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you would have better opps coming from JPM, Citi, or BAML... Wells does a lot of deals but there isn't a ton of modeling if you're doing primarily HY issuance, and I haven't seen them on a ton of sponsor stuff
Actually I think they are pretty active in the leveraged loan space, so you'd probably get some a fair amount of deal flow and solid modeling experience. WF is at the top of the most recent leveraged loan league tables http://about.bloomberg.com/pdf/gslc.pdf. Lev fin can definitely provide a valuable skillset and modeling experience when you're dealing with complex cap structures.
is this Wells CapFin or Wells Securities?
WF LevFin is by far the biggest and most demanding group in the firm. They do tons of deals (especially energy). WF modeling is mostly done within the industry groups so you may not see a lot of that but you still do some.
How are the exits from it though? I know i shouldn't be worrying about this, but I really want to go into PE after doing a few internships in it.
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Haha, I guess I have lower standards - I was considering anything in the top 5 still "the top"...
It's going to be a solid group given the shear volume of deals. I hope you're not talking about FT recruiting because that finished last week at WF IBD.
Also you may not care but Wells promotes the shit out of their analysts so that's a serious thing to consider. If you work hard, produce good work, and want to becomes a 3rd year analyst -> associate the option is absolutely there.
All I can say is that I hope you like market update slides and pricing. This is based on firsthand experience
It's definitely their best group. LevFin generates ~45%-50% of revenue for WF Securities, and resources are allocated accordingly. Their Houston office has been killing it recently, in particular. Bonus was roughly 50k for first years.
Terms of opps, I'd guess only WF Sponsors provides better exits simply because you're working with PE funds, but iirc Sponsors is only located in LA and NY, so you're not going to be in Charlotte. That being said, you're typically gonna do HY issuances and levered loans, not LBOs or M&A. Pretty sure the Charlotte guys get into MM PE fairly regularly. And one of their third years just went to American Capital.
I wouldn't say it's their best group in terms of exit ops, per se. Really that will depend on how much modeling you get to do, the potential employers you get exposed to, etc. I know their TMT group used to be absolutely brutal, but that was a year or two ago. It was a tough group to work in but you got a ton of experience. I don't know if that's still the case.
As far as exit opportunities are concerned, you could make it to PE out of WF, but chances are it will be a smaller, MM fund, nothing large or known. If that's okay with you and you like Charlotte and/or the SE, then it would seem like a decent opportunity. If that isn't something that interests you then you may need to keep fishing.
Ultimately, it comes down to what other options you have. If it's your only solid lead, take it. If you have other leads, then you have to weigh them against each other.
Regards
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