What are the good groups at UBS in 2025?
Earlier this year, the general WSO take seemed to be that Industrials and Sponsors were the top groups. Since then, neither has really done anything notable deal-wise, and both have seen layoffs. At the same time, this forum suggests UBS Tech / ECM is doing fine, but that’s a pretty niche seat and there’s been a lot of negative WSO chatter around Tech and ECM more broadly.
From the outside, it looks like Sponsors and GIG are no longer the “go-to” spots, and the old hierarchy might be pretty outdated. I think it’s still fair to say groups like M&T or M&A are near the bottom given there’s been no visible improvement, but I’m genuinely unsure how the rest stack up now.
As an incoming intern, I’d really appreciate a more current tier list / ranking for UBS groups, since the older threads don’t seem to reflect reality anymore. Any updated insight from recent analysts or people close to the firm would be super helpful.
Levfin has been the consensus pretty heavily post cs
Among the coverage + LevFin / Sponsors groups, only LevFin and CR are genuinely solid right now. Everything else sits somewhere in the middle, with M&A and M&T still clearly at the bottom.
Within that middle tier, Healthcare probably stands out the most given some recent momentum, but the gap is very small and this is purely due to last few months momentum. FIG and Tech also moved up here from bottom-tier due to actually announcing stuff last quarter. This is not to say those groups are actually good, but hard to not to at least rank them with industrials which has basically done nothing all year and lost a bunch of their MDs. Most of the mid-tier groups have a bit of deal flow here and there, with a handful of analysts getting live reps while the rest are stuck on pitch or internal work.
That's very helpful, I will be targeting those two groups and trying to avoid M&A and M&T. Wondering amongst the middle groups, how would you think about it? You mentioned FIG, Tech, and HC have some momentum while industrials does not , should I do a top 5 of LevFin, CR, and an order of HC, Tech, and CR or should I still consider industrials?
Any specific reasons to avoid M&A and M&T is it a culture thing or more exits/dealflow?
M&T has essentially no deal flow or exits beyond LMM PE, yet still grinds some of the longest hours at the bank. You’d think M&A would be stronger given it’s a product group, but it’s the opposite. UBS M&A is notably weak: most of the real modeling happens in coverage, which owns nearly every client relationship since the M&A seniors are mostly junior MDs with limited pull.
Analyst experience is rough. The bulk of the work is merger models and “what-if” scenarios for pitches that never go anywhere, making it one of the most soul-sucking seats on the floor. The people also suck, a lot of the mid-levels are people who have failed at various other banks and just somehow ended up here. They will work you 90 - 100 hour weeks for work nobody asked for. Hours are among the worst, despite few juniors actually closing deals. Exit opportunities are equally underwhelming, recent classes have largely landed in LMM PE, often worse than the outcomes from mid-tier coverage groups which exit into MM PE and the rare UMM PE.
They all kind of stink, recommendation rerecruiting if you want a solid exit or a career in banking
That's the plan. However, still want to get into a good group for placement in case I cannot re-recruit once it comes time for it. I plan to lateral if I cannot re-recruit successfully, but would think it'd be easier if I were in a better UBS group than a bad one.
stay away from every group and far far away from this shitty bank
The main factor why they are underperforming is that they hired a whole bunch of Barclays MDs that are generally bad and they can’t get rid of them because their main boss (also from Barclays) hand picked all his buddies to come over to UBS.
As market share continues to decline, he got promoted and the decision has been made to fire/shit bonus/ridicule non-Barclays CS and UBS MD that were historically there. Result is you get a core of Barclays bankers who all had bleak outlooks at Barclays (due to their own performance), giving UBS a bleak outlook and underperforming almost everywhere.
Did I mention Barclays was wise enough to overlook MV for their head of banking role?
While a lot of what people say on this site has some validity, I'd advise you to step back and ignore all the negativity on this site. Be proud of your hard work that led you to your offer in this shitty job market, and regardless of group, ensure that your #1 priority is landing the return offer... obviously look at group recs here for a general consenus but ultimately choose a group that you connect with people well because they are going to ultiamtely make the decision on ur return
I agree that it's a massive accomplishment to land any offer just numerically. Maybe 1-2% of people recruiting all of IB get offers at well known firms and most even from schools like Wharton don't get an offer at well-known firms.
However, I think it's crucial to take advice here to not be duped in recruiting since group placement is basically marketing for the groups. You do not want to end up at groups with no flow and bad culture like M&A or M&T willingly because it also hurts your return offer rate given how bad the groups are culturally and flow wise. Similarity, LevFin and CR are just so clearly the best groups you should target them unless you despise the people there. In that case, just target any of the other non-M&A or M&T coverage groups.
Of course you had to mention you graduated from Wharton
Strong/“hot” groups: Tech & ECM (niche but active), FIG (steady deal flow), and sometimes Healthcare/BioPharma depending on market cycles. UBS has been leaning into growth sectors.
Middle-tier: Industrials and Sponsors—they used to be top but layoffs and slow deal flow have hurt reputation.
Lower-tier: M&A/Generalist coverage (outside sector-specific teams) and M&T seem slower, less deal-heavy recently.
Basically, the old UBS hierarchy is shifting: deal activity now drives “prestige” more than legacy name. If you’re an incoming intern, Tech/ECM or FIG are probably your best bet for interesting deals and exposure.
what biopharma/hc deals has UBS been on recently? haven't seen their name around
Tech ECM has had a strong 2H of 2025 and has been one of the few bright spots of a terrible year for the firm. However, I am not sure that makes tech or ECM overall strong groups as Tech hasn't seen as much flow outside of ECM and ECM has seen no flow outside of tech flow. FIG also is a bit weird because there are some sub sectors they are okay like fintech but they are terrible in everything else, so not sure how that makes a good group. I am shocked you didn't mention CR as a top group given their deal flow with Celsius + Walgreens just this year.
Tech is absolutely garbage deal volume fees down what is estimated to be ~80%+ via this article
It was a bottom group for UBS as of 1H 2025, but has had a relatively strong 2H 2025 in UBS terms though: announced a few M&A deals recently most notably Veeco - Axcelis $4.4bn M&A as sole advisor, and some lead-lefts on ECM deals. Not an actual good group by any stretch of the word, but a mid-tier group relative to UBS where most groups haven't been lead advisor on anything or even get 2nd or 3rd listed advisor on anything. It is more of an reflection as to how bad some other UBS groups like Industrials, REGL, M&T, etc. have been recently than Tech having done well themselves.
How do the coverage splits work? I know within M&A they have a tech group. Is tech ECM a specific tech group within ECM, vice versa…?
UBS? Zoo wee mama
Lev fin is still very good and well respected on the streets. CR easily top coverage group in terms of deals flow, culture , prestige
Lmao from ur comments history clearly an incoming first year analyst at C&R in UBS. Stop making these inflated points without real backing
Not in CR, but the only thing he is right about is deal flow. It's by far the strongest coverage group for deal flow this year since Industrials has seemingly had dramatically reduced deal flow. Exits wise: it wasn't that great of a group in latest cycle. There was a previous post about this but the only groups with more than 1 UMM (defining it as say 6bn+ in fund size) were industrials, LevFin (in PC), and weirdly enough Tech.
Why are you avoiding M&A and M&T?
Copying from earlier comment but TLDR; Of the coverage groups + LevFin that most people on a forum like WSO are considering, it's the worst 2 groups.
M&T has essentially no deal flow or exits beyond LMM PE, yet still grinds some of the longest hours at the bank. You’d think M&A would be stronger given it’s a product group, but it’s the opposite. UBS M&A is notably weak: most of the real modeling happens in coverage, which owns nearly every client relationship since the M&A seniors are mostly junior MDs with limited pull.
Analyst experience is rough. The bulk of the work is merger models and “what-if” scenarios for pitches that never go anywhere, making it one of the most soul-sucking seats on the floor. The people also suck, a lot of the mid-levels are people who have failed at various other banks and just somehow ended up here. They will work you 90 - 100 hour weeks for work nobody asked for. Hours are among the worst, despite few juniors actually closing deals. Exit opportunities are equally underwhelming, recent classes have largely landed in LMM PE, often worse than the outcomes from mid-tier coverage groups which exit into MM PE and the rare UMM PE.
Tech going from being the worst group to being considered mid-tier for some ECM deals and very few M&A deals is proof of how much UBS has declined. I do agree that M&T, M&A, REGL are the worst in terms of deal flow/exits right now. In terms of culture/hours, the bad groups in the bank are really M&T, M&A, LevFin, and FIG. Not counting Sponsors for either because that group is a mess with all the layoffs (including multiple analysts) and their combination with M&A.
Spot on. I would characterize M&T, M&A, and FIG as unnecessarily sweaty (ie lots of additional turns no one asked for by low value add seniors) and a toxic culture, whereas LF is more just pure play sweaty.
exactly. Levfin is sweaty because they run the same super long credit processes over and over again for deals of all sizes. The others are busy because they are doing 10 iterations of work for a VP who wants it in case someone asks for it (nobody ever asks for it). GIG used to be super sweaty as well but one of the few perks of seniors leaving is that there's better WLB since not as much work.
LevFin is probably the best bet right now. One of the few US LevFin group that will tend to actually hold the pen on the model (only other BBs that have this are BofA and DB) and they still are winning major left leads so your deal experience will be super solid.
The only model levfin does is a templated LBO that is plug-and-play, most of your time is doing the same internal memo over and over again. Levfin is a great group for credit exits with UMM/MF PC exits. However, if not interested in credit LevFin is not a good or relevant group. Still agree overall best group but very credit oriented.
Is this specific to UBS? Don’t work there but at one of the other banks I mentioned and there LevFin usually runs with it if it’s a deal without a sponsor in the same way that the FSG would, and seems to be able to exit to UMM PE.
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