Wells Fargo Top Groups
I understand Wells gets a pretty bad rep (especially on this site) but have always heard there are a couple decent groups in terms of deal flow and PE placement. Curious what those are? thanks
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Bad rep has definitely diminished, esp after last year where they managed to hit top 10 M&A advisors. Most of the people shitting on Wells are prospects relying on opinions from 5 years ago, so take everything with a grain of salt.
A lot has changed given the new senior hires and development of their IB business. I'd say if you're interested in coverage, the best groups historically are Industrials, FIG, Energy, and REGAL. TMT has also picked up significantly, with very strong hires from CS and MS, and multiple deals in the billions last year. Industrials and energy have also made big hires in the last couple months from CS, Barclays, and Evercore.
Overall, it seems like a solid place to be as an analyst if you were to land one of these groups. Exits wise, you're better off being in the New York office so definitely shoot for that.
Former employee here, why is industrials considered a top group? There’s several sub verticals within industrials with MDs that I was uh….not particularly impressed with.
granted they recently hired Kirk meighan from Barclays who looks like a stud.
From what I've heard, the NY industrials subverticals are pretty strong now. Good amount of M&A happening for the group. Kirk looks like a beast, and they also hired some senior folks from CS.
I can't speak on Charlotte industrials though, but I have heard more mixed things about that.
It has a bad rep amongst prospects who don't know what they are talking about.
From what I know, it's definitely a decent place to be, and if you want to be a career banker, even better due to the WLB. As for coverage groups, FIG and REGAL are definitely top tier with TMT making some key hires and thus great upside potential. Product group wise, Levfin is very strong. Deal flow is strong from what I noticed and PE exists are varied depending on group. REGAL has great placements into REPE. FIG can pigeonhole you and that's all I know, can't really make any commends on exits. Industrials seem to have great exits (Linkedin search).
Overall bank has improved. New management actually cares about Investment Banking and sees the upside in it. Old management didn't care at all. The upside has always been there (Bloomberg has a great article about Jamie DImon talking about the IB opportunity at WF)
I've been having a great time at Wells in the energy group. Culture is good and very laid back. trying to get moved to hudson yards though. a lot of people are in charlotte and some are in SF or midtown.
Is it the same in the Toronto office?
hmm im not sure. I dont know anyone in toronto
Isn’t most of the energy group in Houston?
Coverage doesn’t do any modeling. It all goes through the M&A group. M&A is a very solid group with plenty of modeling reps. I would caveat that it’s much more weighted to buy side advisory as opposed to sell side. Sell side reps typically go to the best analysts/associates in the group
Exception is the Energy Group will do in-house modeling since it’s all energy models with a lot of nuance.
Yeah energy ain’t it
REGAL does their own M&A completely. M&A group at wells isn’t too strong comparatively
That’s pretty wildly wrong
FIG also does all modeling in-house
Yeah no one wants to touch the fig models. Those things are a bear
Is wells FIG the same as their FSG? Been trying to get more info on their sponsers group
Still have balance sheet restrictions, right? Would expect them to grow stronger when those are lifted as well. Wells doesn’t seem like a bad place to be. Decent WLB from what I’ve heard.
M&A actually doesn't do all modeling - it's very group dependent and varies based on your capacity. I know at least for TMT and industrials, the group still runs the model in a lot of cases. With that said, there are cases where the groups will hand off aspects to the model to M&A. Don't let this dissuade you at all from doing coverage if that's what you're interested in.
How can you hand off "aspects" of the model? Maybe coverage can give a synergies number but there's absolutely only one team running the model. Also how many folks in a coverage bullpen can use the model? Not saying that model is the best and greatest but if you're running a deal with teams across the bank it's the best one to use as people are most familiar with the outputs and how it functions. Especially if there's a fairness opinion
I meant *aspects including the model. My fault.
I used to be in the group, and there were plenty of times where we would put together the data room but not actually run the model.
Any colour on the three TMT groups?
I think NY does more like diversified media, SF does semis and a bit of SaaS, and I have no clue what CLT does but any clarification on that + breakdown of deal flow for the offices and maybe how hard it is to get each of them with Well’s weird selection process
Can't comment on TMT but the placement process is a bit hyped. Everyone makes it seem worse than it actually is.
Traditionally, prospects just didn't want to be in CLT but that isn't a big problem with WF shifting a lot of their IB operation to NYC. As for getting a specific group, as long as you network with folks in those groups you should be solid.
Got it, just was curious because a lot of friends who went to targets (like more than 5 people) I spoke to for this intern class tried going for like TMT in NYC and SF and got like fuckin structured finance or industrials in CLT and I saw another post saying pretty much no one moves from CLT -> NYC for FT after their internship and you shouldn’t even try as they won’t give you an offer so wasn’t sure if it was something you could really rely on
NYC and CLT work together in business tech services, media, and telecom. Team are cross staffed constantly.
SF does all the pure tech companies and doesn’t work with other teams. Though the group is building out a NYC tech team.
I agree with the comment above regarding the placement process. It's definitely gotten a lot better, given the new Hudson Yards office and the investment into IB in New York. If you network and have good conversations with 2-3 groups, you should be in decent shape. It is competitive for top groups, but very doable.
I think Wells is given too much credit here. It's not a bad firm and if looking at thread title "Wells Fargo Top Groups" it's not bad advice but would reign in the scope here. To be clear, if you're interested in core investment banking, M&A and IPOs, it remains a challenged firm. Has had some major wins, but would argue the majority of those remain balance sheet driven.
Yes, a lot of their M&A wins are recent and balance sheet-driven. With that said, there's a viable path to consistent M&A wins now given the momentum they have and the hires that have taken place over the past year.
Agreed with the above commenter. A lot of the info on WSO on wells is very outdated, and I think they actually get less credit than they deserve.
you will still see WF lead with the balance sheet (that’s their strength, why wouldn’t they), but they have picked up steam in M&A. They have some sponsors relationships (any BX real estate related deal, Apollo) where you will almost always see them involved. Now the benefit of working as an advisor for a powerhouse like BX is open to interpretation and if you get any actual intellectual benefit from it is also open to interpretation. I think the right things are in place and if these superstar MDs they are consistently bringing in can perform, Wells M&A can consistently be top 10 in the league tables, especially with CS gone and Deutsche being less focused in IB.
as for IPO, that’s another story. Market needs to rebound before making any comment on Wells ability to do IPOs
Bottom line, it’s a growing platform and I think it’ll be a serious contender in the very near future. For a career banker, I don’t think there’s a bank better. For an analyst trying to do a quick 2 year stint, you could be served better looking elsewhere. I am a Wells alum, loved my time there, and WLB was great. Maybe if I aimed for mega PE I would feel a little different, but WF is what got me into one of the most prestigious real estate development firm in the states. Have nothing bad to say about it, and I am rooting for Wells
Were you in REGAL?
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