Which banks get the most hate on WSO, and is it warranted?
I’ll take a stab. Seems like the commonality amongst the hated banks here are poor pay coupled with bad/sweaty culture.
- Jefferies: Overly sweaty, terrible pay despite good deal flow (all the $$$ goes to the MDs), toxic seniors, recent death of an associate from overwork, RH seems like a tool on IG. But, deal flow overall is solid and you will likely get good experience/reps on real M&A transactions
- BofA: Pay is bottom of street despite being #3/4 in league tables, death of a green beret leading to scathing WSO article, top heavy with lots of useless MDs, no accountability, poor talent management and uneven allocation of work drives out top performers, general apathy from BofA towards its investment bank. But, the lack of accountability can be a positive from a WLB perspective if you want to coast, and deal flow in certain areas is decent (top 2 LF practice for example)
- UBS: terrible culture post-merger, internal infighting / political wars, terrible deal flow in most groups, general erosion of culture the past few years pissing off the UBS legacies. But, deal flow is OK in the right places and overall pay relative to WLB isn’t terrible compared to some competitors
Any others I missed?
Every single bank
Lol none of what you said about UBS is true
Everything he said about UBS is true... the bank has been notoriously full of infighting. The FIG group lost a whole bunch of MDs in the past year for instance, due to political infighting. Culture also comes from the top, and the broader nastiness amongst seniors in groups like FIG and tech has spilled through. I think it's asinine to claim UBS also has good deal flow across all groups; I don't think there's a single notable transaction that was solely run out of or sourced out of the FIG team or Tech team in the last 12 months. Again also not true to say UBS as a whole has no flow, but true to say there are various groups at the firm without flow.
Every single bank gets hate here, so it's easier to identify banks that are over glorified mostly due to their respective bankers sucking their own firms.
I know prob wrong thread for this but currently recruiting and holding offers from ghl and san both nyc ib, both seem to have major drawbacks but is it a no brainer decision and I’m j overthinking? would appreciate your insight
Ghl and don’t look back. They still get all the looks from major PE firms.
Will add some here (hint: every bank has its drawbacks):
Goldman - overly sweaty and “cutthroat” culture for no reason, shit pay “Goldman discount”, tons of nepo kids in TMT doing literally nothing while everyone else gets shafted. Also D-Sol lmao
MS - better culture but top groups are as sweaty as GS for similar and some years even worse pay. HR is extremely incompetent. Tons of diversity ppl fucking around and leaving at 8pm while the 3-4 competent analysts in each group get killed, good exits though.
Barclays - Legacy Lehman politics and overall US decline. Someone that works there can give more insight.
I honestly feel like Goldman bankers generally have the most fragile self confidence on the inside, while MS M&A kids are truly the high finance or my life is done type. JPM generally seems chill (don't work there).
Have heard terrible things about almost every JPM group (especially FIG and HC)
They have the most fragile self confidence because people outside the industry think they are gods gift for working at "the goldmans sachs!!" meanwhile inside the industry people know the top top kids are taking top EB offers over them
Your MS M&A take is extremely accurate. It takes so much effort to get placed into the group, so it self selects for the high finance or my life is done type. I personally know a couple of them and they are exactly those types of people.
Curious: what % of GS TMT is nepo? and what groups have most nepo's?
It depends on the group. In aggregate, I’d say around 69%
Left Lane Associates gets undeserved hate. It is paradise
Most banks catch flak on WSO, some fairly, some not. But a more productive discussion is around which firms are overrated.
On that note, the Canadian banks, especially TD and RBC, are consistently overrated on this forum. TD is, functionally, a middle market shop in the U.S., and the Cowen acquisition hasn’t meaningfully changed that outside of a few verticals. Solid comp and work-life balance, sure, but it's not a competitive M&A platform stateside.
RBC gets propped up a lot, often under the “RBC Nice” narrative and the narrative of claiming to be a BB, which, frankly, doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Just being better than DB in the U.S. doesn’t make you a bulge bracket. And culturally? Some of the worst behavior I saw over my years in IB came from RBC bankers, so much for the friendly rep. Hours in certain groups used to be brutal back from ~12 years ago, and I have heard that remains as bad today.
Good shops in Canada, no doubt. But the U.S. platform, particularly in M&A, isn’t close to the BBs, and WSO tends to gloss over that.
Yeah I think this forum is biased towards banks that pay relatively well for the workload - this thread is full of burnt out A and A’s after all. The Canadian banks you mentioned are solid in this regard but you aren’t going to get much real M&A experience there.
Work there - think RBC just has particularly high variability amongst the groups and even sub-groups (certain verticals). I happened to be in one where I closed a decent amount of significant m&a as lead or sole advisor but that's definitely not true across the board. Certainly the reason I've stayed this long is because I think it does pay pretty well for not actively trying to kill you. I intend on trying to make this a career so not trying to be a hero lmao.
A
Definitive list of banks with the most hate on WSO and is warranted:
Where does the illustrious Tobin & Co stack up?
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