Wells Fargo NY vs PWP LA
very excited to have offers from both of these banks. I have a Wells offer from the NY office to join Industrials and a PWP LA generalist offer.
I know historically PWP has done better but throughout the recruiting experience Wells has really focused on the momentum it is building in its IB franchise. I am thinking of banking long-term so I don't care about one having better exit ops or things such as that.
I am solely looking for opinions on the different offices (maybe working in NY vs LA), the better banking platform in the long-term, which would be better for a prospective career banker
join us brethren
please give more insight and I just might haha
My experience in the last 2 years have been pretty solid. hudson yards office is very nice. Team culture and the banks culture in general feels very laid back and not so cut-throat. I haven't encountered many hardos at Wells. The work events are usually a good time. My comp has been good too, haven't had a bad bonus yet.
I'm tryna learn more about the WF IB teams and groups' culture/dealflow/etc. Would you be open to DMing me to chat more? (can't msg you due to your anonymous post)
At WF but plenty of friends at PWP, I honestly think you should take PWP. You’re going to 100% get worked harder there esp because the LA office is pretty goddamn lean but given culture at both firms is pretty good in terms of development and seniors “getting it” and you’d get paid much better at PWP, I think PWP is a better choice.
Separately, it’s good you want to stay in banking long term but I would recognize that it’s hard to know what you’ll be doing in five years from now let alone most of your career so I would go to the place you’ll be paid better and be able to do more things from/exit better from in case banking does turn out to be not for you long term esp because culture is pretty good at both places. Only reason you’d take WF over PWP is the sheer hours but banking is banking, the hours are going to suck regardless
LA is a strong office for PWP and think you’d get better M&A experience there. Also, exits to PE are much more doable from PWP, but may be localized to LA/SF.
Unless you desperately need to be in NYC not sure why’d you choose WF here
NY Industrials banker but pretty familiar with PWP's LA office. You should take PWP, and it isn't even close. PWP LA will provide you with significantly better M&A deal exposure, a much more technical and rigorous junior experience, and better exit opportunities if you become interested in the buy-side at any time.
At this point in your career, if you're interested in banking for the long-term, you should be focused much more on (1) the better name because life changes and so will your interests and (2) the place that will give you better deal experience. Looking at banking platform is absolutely useless because how much the banking landscape can and likely will change. For example, 5 years ago, CS was still an infallible brand name among the BBs that no one in their right minds would have thought would pull out of IB before DB and UBS. A even better example is that pre-2018, WF made a huge push with building up their IB franchise (sound familiar?), but in 2018 a combination of factors led to WF losing a lot of their quality seniors as well as mid-level and junior employees. The most important factors for becoming a career banker at this point in your career are (1) exposure to top seniors, which I can assure you the PWP LA seniors are much stronger than the vast majority of WF Industrials seniors, and (2) junior experience and training, which PWP LA is much better at.
The only reason why you should be considering WF over PWP is if you heavily prefer NY over LA for personal reasons, or if you want to have somewhere to "hide". On the latter point, PWP LA's office is very technical and lean where juniors are expected to play upwards, have a lot of direct exposure to seniors, and where the deals they work on are on the more technical side, so expectations in the office are likely higher. While those are largely good things for your development, It's not an unreasonable thing to not want to be in such an environment and instead go somewhere a bit larger, more bureaucratic, where you can hide a bit more.
We work with PWP's LA team all the time, they're a high quality team and the guys there are super nice. If you're interested in Industrials I honestly don't think there's a lot of places that provide a better junior experience than that office.
Also echoing what's been said above, current firm momentum means nothing at this point in your career. SVB had great momentum building up their Tech and HC franchises until they didn't. Truist had great momentum building its IB franchise until they decided to destroy that momentum. Greenhill was a premier independent advisory firm until it suddenly lost a bunch of top seniors. WF post-GFC was doing well building its IB franchise until a series of unfortunate events in 2018. CS and Lehman were premier IB blue-blood franchises unitl they weren't. Things change all the time on Wall Street.
Are you a lateral hire or is this for FT?
If you’re SA and get placed into REGAL or maybe FIG, then I’d strongly consider WF. But for industrials, probably PWP though I will say the pay may not be that much different
Lmao, pay isn’t even close. WF comp is in line with low tier BBs
Wells gave out like 70-90 this past year. What was PWP? Genuinely asking as the data I heard was that it was slightly lower than this. Might just have it wrong on my end
This is wildly incorrect. PWP pays higher but Wells actually pays on the higher end of BBs
Wdym in line with “low tier” BBs GS and MS historically underpaid (except 2021 for GS) all BBs pay about the same lol
WF industrials is definitely on the rise but I would say PWP is the safer bet. If you're dead set on NYC then maybe WF, but otherwise PWP.
Both groups are solid, but PWP is more established and will probably give you a more traditional banking experience. WF has hired a few strong folks in industrials and has had some pretty good traction in M&A over the 1-2 years. It's a good bet if you're looking to be a career banker, but if you're interested in PE then definitely PWP.
PWP and it doesn’t even compare
PWP has great exits to PE, and other types of roles. They give you mobility to move upwards, and they pay very well, have good culture etc.
Wells is a typical retail bank and seem to be good in primarily lending. From what I hear they only have a few big M&A deals, but their M&A is very middle market focused for the most part. They’re also based in North Carolina so… enough said
Spot on. WF doesn’t compare to PWP IB.
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