What exactly is Goldman Sachs doing that is resulting in them dominating the league tables like this? Is it sophisticated financing, impressive tombstones, or are the bankers just better than everyone else? Curious to hear y’all’s thoughts.
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Look at their fee split and you’ll have half your answer (it’s not financing).
what do you mean
they dominate M&A fees tables pretty remarkably
At least within my sector (think HC/TMT/FIG), it's just been a banner year with macro tailwinds, large caps looking to transact, and a good set up on sell side positioning and cashing in on some LT relationships.
We had $1T announced M&A just before the mid year and a large gap between #2. We're an M&A bank at our core (vs. JPM) so when deal vol is up we'll naturally capture that upside.
If you're a BoD and doing a large trxn, can't go wrong with just "hiring Goldman" and getting that GS stamp of approval
I will say at the An/Aso level it has been brutal this year...
healthcare
Brutal in what way? Hours?
« An institution is its people and Goldman is Goldman »
As per above comment, largely due to the board approval. Similar to how Centerview always wins HC deals
They benefitted from first mover advantage, being amongst the first few banks that did securitisation and high-yield bonds. They also grew organically, didn't do many high profile acquisitions compared to JPM and have stayed a core multi-service investment bank, not a gigantic retail bank with other corporate divisions. Reputations and legacies that are so long-lasting and well renowned that hiring them is basically a guarantee or seal of approval. I can see how JPM managed to grow and is impressively led by Dimon who knew how to expand across different products, both retail & corporate banking, but GS (and MS to an extent) have largely been the same throughout their history
Try working there lol, everyone is pushed to the limit
It’s pretty insane tbh
Left recently for private side (ignore title) PE, my 2c:
A&A varied a lot, some were spectacular and others left a lot to be desired
Network was spectacular, seniors on my side were great, lots of learning
Even in credit people hate working there. I’ve never heard anything positive about them other than the name.
.
Bulge brackets are the sacred institutions in finance
There’s nothing particularly great about it, the name brand reputation does a lot of heavy lifting. Take 80% of the bankers (namely seniors) and drop them into a different bank, unlikely they’ll be as successful without the Goldman platform
Pretty sure this is just false. the whole point of an MD is that they hold personal relationships with clients, not that they just represent the goldman name. Why do you think banks are willing to pay so much to poach MD's?
idk tho someone from goldman can correct me if im wrong
no i know/agree that in theory, MDs provide value by developing great client relationships. in practice, however, from what i've seen very few GS MDs really carry their weight to where they can actually singlehandedly hold the client relationship and continue it if they moved to evercore, lazard, cantor, etc.
My thoughts as a student of the bank and industry for like 30 years now:
GS is uniquely built as an advisory bank way more compared to JPM. The only comparable bank is MS as they were born in the 1930s to split from then JPM to be the IB/advisory business. GS is like the older brother compared to MS.
And it’s still part of the culture today thought TBH that may be shifting as DJDSOL and the public markets seem to want GS to focus more on GSAM.
Putting that aside, my interactions with the entire bank is it takes pride in being the best advisor in the world to corporate America and corporations worldwide. They want to be the best financial advisors on the biggest transactions and most consequential deals in the world. It permeates throughout the firm. Even random back office GS people like LinkedIn posts that say GS is proud to have advised SpaceX on IPO etc.
JPM to be frank is more of a consumer bank. Modern JPM was really built on Chase and then added the JPM name as better corporate HQ branding. Most of the business is really Chase. That said post the Bear deal and the rise of Jamie and such has made them a bigger player in M&A and beating GS at times. But legacy Bear and the greatest of Jamie Dimon and the name of John Pierpont Morgan is still not so able to beat out all that GS is bringing to the table.
Also I would be remiss if I didn’t mention culture GS is a team sport bank partnership GS is much more of a group of people and a big team when it comes to mega I deals JPM just feels less so more of a fiefdom and federation compared to (dare I say) “family” (or if you may “cult”) that GS brings to clients it’s like 10 people working together are likely going to be able to defeat a 1 man team no matter how good that 1 person may be
Things could change but these are like giant entities in huge markets. Change is measured over decades and such.
I hope this helps add to the discussion. Peace ✌️
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