WF is severely underrated in this forum
I am ready for the downvotes from juniors as I challenge the consensus opinion on this forum. However, I think the view of WF on this forum is no longer reflective of the firm's 2024/2025 state, but more reflective of its previous reputation. I don't think it's the fault of juniors or prospects recruiting as they are getting their views from others in a similar situation reading threads from earlier in WSO. Hence, I wanted to just make a quick thread with updates:
- WF has been T10 in M&A for the YTD, 2024 full-year, and LTM rankings. They are currently 10th in LTM and for context firms ranked right below them it's Jefferies, UBS, and RBC; all 3 of which are held as being better than WF on this forum.
- WF gets continuously shit on for "winning deals based on commercial relationships". A) they are winning more sole and lead roles such as being the lead advisor on the Quikrete - Summit $9.2 Billion deal. B) Multiple banks win deals for reasons outside of pure advisory strength. Jefferies is unique because of their lack of leveraged loan restrictions, meaning it can be more aggressive in LevFin lending, which it uses to build relationships and often get M&A credit. UBS and DB similarly also have strong LevFin franchises, which they use to get M&A credit on deals as well. RBC does the same thing that WF has with aggressive lending + using commercial lending, and is perhaps even more aggressive than WF.
Unique position in America's growth. WF is one of the major American commercial banks with vast relationships across all industries that they can tap into. Moreover, they have clearly committed to growing their IB franchise with various senior hires, particularly from JPM and CS which should lead to them having more lead deals.
I am not claiming that WF is a top M&A franchise, but it's arguably better than firms like DB which are ranked significantly below them in the LTM league tables. I think it's also better than RBC, given league table rankings and both use the same strategies to win dealflow as well as both often not being lead advisors on deals. It certainly is better in M&A than the variety of MM firms that it sometimes gets grouped in with like TD or HL.
DB still exits better, so is better.
nice write-up, can you get me a job there
Del
Analyst here, and this is literally the script seniors have been shoving down our throats... won't be surprised if this guy is just another analyst. Every Bi-weekly banks meeting they force this Top 10 League table rhetoric, realistically we're not getting a top advisory mandate, just the cheap financing (i.e. Walgreens)
Most of those names you throw in the comparison with us also get equally sh*tted on (if not more nowadays for certain names), so don't see the reason for this post.
The people sh*tting on WF see it as Top 3 BB/EB or bust.
Pure financing role on Wallgreens btw, they did not win the mandate. Reflective in how they phrased it, lead = buyer's main advisor, those added on in the end are just pure financing tips/credit:
"UBS Investment Bank is acting as lead financial advisor, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are acting as co-lead financial advisors, Citi and Wells Fargo are acting as financial advisors..."
Sorry if I wasn't clear but yes, I mentioned it as a -ve point, as realistically we will not get lead-roles on a large M&A mandate. Mid-market banking sure.
Yeah but Citi and WF both got checks. Maybe you don't lead the deal but I sure as hell would prefer to still be in the deal.
Am a senior there, not an analyst. More so just trying to correct a wrong perception of WF here. We are not getting a top advisory mandate without financing but by that logic, the only firms that are respectable are the big 3 BBs and maybe Centerview, Lazard, and Evercore since those are really the only firms that win large-cap mandates consistently and at a high rate without financing relationships.
I am not claiming other firms don't get leads but they don't get them regularly or consistently without aforementioned financing relationships. BofA and Citi are some of the largest financing banks with vast commercial relationships that are part of their relationship-building get mandates. As mentioned in the initial comment, Jeff is regulated differently and their large-cap M&A mandates stem from sponsors or corporations to where they can provide highly-levered deals. UBS and to a lesser extent Barclays have positioned itself as a bank for sponsors and all their large-cap mandates are sponsor deals. Other firms like RBC gets as few lead mandates as WF does. Thus, I don't think WF using their financing capabilities to win large-cap mandates is particularly unique and WF isn't even the most aggressive in doing so; RBC is.
I never understood the ding against getting an M&A mandate thru lending relationships. You still get to make the model as junior, make some silly CIM pages, and screw around in a VDR- the work and what you learn is still all the same. Plus the financing dynamic was interesting to see as part of the deal too.
Agree this was what was shoved down juniors throats. I left 9 months ago and my life has gotten so much better. I think the platform does have a lot of potential but there’s just so much ingrained inefficiency. Many of the seniors at the group I was in were extremely incompetent and lost mandates with longstanding clients due to the inability to cover their clients or provide real value. I’m glad I’m out. 2 years grinded to the bone and essentially no deals to show for it (not counting random financing things where you just do a pointless memo and it passes committee)
What group were you in and would you say this holds true across all groups?
Yeah, WF isn’t particularly a shitty bank other than the exits are far below mid-tier BBs like Bofa/Citi let alone DB/UBS. Pls stop bringing up top 10 u.s or whatever, as that means nothing without per capita comparison. The reality is no one is choosing WF over DB/UBS/JEFF type banks. Btw, when was the last time WF acted as the lead advisor?
del
Hilarious reading this on the same day as a thread about how sloppy and poor the work quality is at WF with a bunch of analysts claiming to work there and business partners agreeing lol
Commercial bank
del
Wells Fargo has indeed been an extremely fast-growing bank within the past 3 years after Jeff Hogan joined. Isn't recently acted as the lead financial advisor to Blackstone in its acquisition of Safe Harbor Marinas (5.6+ bn deal). I think the firm has just long established itself as a financing firm, plus it also has a huge commercial bank, so it usually takes people years to switch up perception on Wells Fargo. BofA has been pretty shit pre-2008 too. Interesting to see what this bank will become in next 10 years.
So rebuttal to a couple points
#2) wells being advisor to Quikrete (not quiktree) was a financing deal where Quikrete knew what they wanted to buy, needed financing and threw wells a buy side tombstone. Which I guess is better than when Quikrete bought forterra in 2021 and giving Goldman the advisory role (for their at the time biggest acquisition) despite having wells arrange the financing and wells being their main commercial bank. That was awkward (for wells).
3) wells mid cap investment bank (fmka as regional investment bank) was traditionally just a conduit between wells commercial banking clients and the investment bank. They were generalists and as a result wells consistently punched below their weight in terms of harvesting investment banking business from commercial banking clients lagging well behind JPM and BofA, the two most relevant comps. Even the recent renaming and restructuring of the regional investment bank to a more industry focused model is literally copying and pasting JPM,s mid corporate model (they even used the same exact name) to try and better compete.
There’s worse places to be than wells but no they’re not a true bulge bracket and you can argue will probably never be.
I came here to a) give kudos to the only person who realized it was Quikrete (if you missed it, you can't claim that you have "attention to detail" and should reconsider your career path) and b) confirm that WF is writing bigger checks and getting slightly better creds (but likely not the best economics). Spent 15+ years at Wells (ABL, LevFin, others) and can attest that it's a solid path to MM PE and/or Private Credit (I'm from a time where ARR lending and unitranche were new concepts).
Not trying to throw any hate but this is honestly very sad. You are at least 5-7 years out of college right? You are just a very small cog in a huge machine. Rather than justifying why Wells Fargo is underrated, consider having some meaningful hobbies.
I think most banks / groups / etc are underrated here. This forum is way too nit-picky and preftige obsessed (the never ending tier lists for banks are just ridiculous). I think if you follow this forum too closely you will end up unhappy no matter what.
Exactly this. I have dozens of friends who are or have been at basically every bank on the street. There is no correlation to rank/prestige/pay and happiness.
I picked a firm almost exclusively based on culture. Everyone on this site would call it trash. And yet, I am exceptionally happy here. My pay is street. Nearly all of my colleagues all the way up and down the chain are respectful and supportive. I crank out multiple deals a year. Almost all my friends have left their banks because they couldn’t take it anymore. Some are doing well, but most took enormous pay cuts. I’m still chugging along making way more than them and basically anyone else I know who isn’t an oral surgeon or something.
This is the way
I'm curious to hear about typical and best-case PE exits from the last 2 yrs from here if anyone can chime in. Deliberating an offer currently.
Middle market PE is the best I’ve seen. I saw a guy exit to GTCR from my coverage group and other mm firms like quad-c, monomoy
This gives off the same vibes as when Truist’s upper management gives the post-merger growth story after 5 years of persistent layoffs.
Truist has never had as strong of numbers as wells last 5 year run.
solid shop and provides brand name experience for more corporate roles
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