William Blair Layoffs?!
Heard there was another round of headcount reductions at Blair. Anyone know further detail?
Disappointing to hear following their miniscule bonuses this year.
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Mostly juniors I’m hearing with some MDs and VPs. Big cut cut across TMT group.
Heard ~10% layoff
Any guess on whether this will impact incoming analysts?
Yea, they'll probably be much more stingy with FT offers.
Source: HR friend that works there
..
Are you talking for incoming SA? Incoming analysts already signed so are you saying they might rescind?
Heard much higher than 10% and all levels impacted (first year analyst up to seniors). Friend there said it’s very bad
Heard the same. Tech, healthcare, and ECM all getting hit hard.
Please tell me how Industrials is fairing, that's where I'm headed.
Thanks
How’s the future looking for Blair?
Unless interest rates go back to zero it’s not looking good lol
Why do you say so?
incredibly solid, just a bump in the road. Other banks will follow suit WB just moved first.
First years??
(del)
Heard almost 30% in some spots. First analysts all the way up. Brutal and unfair. Hope those affected land on their feet
You guys praise when tech companies lay off, thinking the same can’t happen to you. Brutal? Yes. Unfair? That’s capitalism baby.
Unfair? Downturn in the economy = layoffs. No one is entitled to a job, especially in a capitalist industry like IB.
I love these tough guy / gal responses in lay off threads. The brutal "realists" touting that this is capitalism bro and telling people to "man up" about layoffs. When I went through 07-08 and banks first started laying off, there were similar tough guys spouting the same as if it was some new age scholarship. And then when they realized they too were not special and were going to be slayed as well, the tears started to flow. Let's just hope all you fans of capitalism take it just as well as you dish it out.
Which offices? US only or London as well?
Heard London tech wasn't badly affected. Other teams i'm not too sure.
According to Litquidity on IG, it’s 200 heads. Seems like it must be much beyond IB then as they only have ~600 bankers
Nope it was just ~20-30% of total headcount (on the IB side). Close friend works there and said it was a complete blood bath…
Holy shit.
When was the first headcount reduction. Have not heard much
Thought that MM firms were pretty safe. Any insight on the other companies (HL, Baird, Lincoln etc.)?
Del
HL restructuring is doing solid, lots of active mandates. Helps weather the storm a bit
Lincoln had layoffs? Where did you hear that from?
What’s your source on Lincoln layoffs?
Salty baird worker spreading misinformation
"It's a private company so it's more humane and doesn't need to overreact to market swings to appease investors"
If I'm a partner I'm making the pink slip machine go Brrrr. Gotta protect those distributions.
Were any offices hit particularly hard? Do they make decisions based on analyst rankings?
No. They only fired top analysts and kept the bottom analysts, bc that’s makes a whole lot of strategic sense 🫦
yup, cuz top analysts gonna leave anyways and bottom analysts are ok w lower bonuses so better to keep them
Interned at one of the strongest group they have this past summer. Got a return but not going back.
It was so bad, 1/3 of interns weren't staffed on a live deal doing some bs work. Most of us went home before 7pm. AN/ASSO let alone senior people barely showed up in the office.
The incoming class was 50% bigger than us so can imagine how bad it would've been. Saw this coming from miles ahead.
Classic bad mgmt from the top. It is ironic that they are in banking for so long and did not see the music was about to end
Well to be fair no other bankers saw it coming either?
which office?
Where did you lateral to? EB/BB NYC?
how big was your class of interns?
(del)
A pal of mine said they were getting lots of dealflow in December for their med tech group. Tf happened?
Any word on the Supply Chain Services or IGP groups?
Hearf they cut almost 1/3 of TMT team (like 50 out of165ish TMT bankers).
Thats rough. Do you have a sense as to what levels got affected the most?
Was told it was a mix of everyone but I don't have a break down. tough sitiuation regardless
Associates and analysts got hit the hardest. It went all the way up to MD but much lower % from VP to MD than for AN and ASO
To be fair, 165 TMT bankers seems like way too many for a whatevs middle market firm...
Yikes! Any cuts in Biotech? Had an offer there but went elsewhere and curious about how the team is doing.
Incoming analysts just had start-date moved back to October.
Is this fr? So first years wouldn’t hit the desk until December then?
They semi-suggested parts of training would need to be completed ahead of time including all three exams. Can't imagine they've had enough time to think to thoroughly about it.
I used to work there and they overhired. Big time. They grew every group, promoted lots of people, started new practice areas, opened new offices. They didn’t seem to stop until everyone else already knew the music was stopping.
Someone senior I know well left not too long ago and it was because he knew they were overextending themselves and it wasn’t going to end well.
They hired a lot at the MD level too. I imagine part of the reason bonuses were so bad this year were all the MD guarantees they had to pay out.
Unfortunately true.
Incoming FT. Pushed our start date back 3 months to October. Is this bad for potential recruiting? Feeling like I’ll be behind
Almost seems preferable for on-cycle depending on how early it starts (varies year to year). While you'll definetly miss some aspects, its not like new first years are hitting the desk and just grinding models. You won't be missing much of value that you'd discuss in recruiting anyways. I would enjoy the summer and prep hard for recruiting while you can if thats the route you want to go, you'll have more time compared to other banks. PE firms are hiring for 2 years down the line so they aren't going to put much weight on your first few months of experience. Most banks start in late August or September anyways, not a big difference from October.
Also, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that other banks will follow suit and delay start dates
Yeah not great, you’ll be up against analysts with months of deal experience
Incoming FT, do you think there's a chance they push back the start date further or rescind offers? A bit worried and weighing my options right now, sorry if this comes off as a bit tone-deaf
Always have a backup plan, especially when there’s much uncertainty
by backup plan do you mean we should be looking for a new job? If so which opportunities would you consider? Thanks!
Are more Blair layoffs expected throughout the week or did everyone get cut today?
they said they’re done but they left capacity for when the market recovers (they haven’t pulled the value creation lever all the way down yet)
Who tf talks like that? Answer the mans question
That's a lot of jobless people now added to the large pool of people looking for banking/Corp dev roles.
i can tell you this: the chicago corp dev / finance job market is sticks and bones rn already.
This seems like the highest layoff percentage of any major bank.
Smallest bonuses and largest % layoffs of any firm on the street.
100% accurate
... so far (holding my breath)
What do incoming analysts do now considering start date is pushed back to October? Some probably won't be able to start that late cos internationals and visa problems. Do they re-recruit? Look elsewhere what places are even gonna be willing to hire right now
Are they even sponsoring internationals this year? I know they've done it in the past.
They do. Source: incoming employee
Any insights on consumer retail team
C&R faired much better than others from what I’ve heard very few juniors affected
Insight regarding Boston?
Bump
Bump
Pretty brutal ~30% across all sectors; analysts all the way to MDs affected; big hit in Chicago / US
It’s not 30% across all. Some groups got hit way worse than others. It’s mostly HC, TMT and ECM that got hit.
Does it even out to 30% of IB (ie., some groups hit by more than 30%, some less?) or is it that the groups that got hit the worst are the ones that saw ~30% in reduction
I thought they were top MM HC in CHI for layoffs to happen in this firm from what everyone said in other posts.....
Bump
LinkedIn needs a "marked as safe" feature for when companies have massive layoffs, like Facebook has for when there are natural disasters / emergencies
with photo frames #StandWithBlair
What are the severance package looking like? Can laid off an/aso still technically be on the company before they start their PE stint?
Wait how can they layoff employees when the company doesn't physically exist anymore?
What do you mean?
How did the Chicago office hold up? Which groups in the Chicago office were hit hardest? Unfortunate situation... Best of luck, all
Impact on London?
Many juniors were let go, some seniors too
how senior? VPs? Directors? MDs?
With recruitment going on right now… who would want to even sign an offer to a bank that cut 20% of it’s bankers and pushed its full time start date by two months
Have a close friend at WB, passing along what I heard…
Layoffs were 10-20% across the board but closer to 30% in tech/healthcare/ECM. Most concentrated at associate level followed by analyst and VP. Very few seniors impacted. First years (associates and analysts) impacted as well. Obviously performance related but wasn’t just cutting the clear dead weight, sounds like some very well respected people were included here.
Sounds like people are (rightfully) quite mad, it was a complete blindside. Apparently even MDs weren’t in the loop and entire deal teams were fired with no planning. Sounds like entire firm is scrambling to keep deals moving. Curious if anyone here is working with them at the moment and can comment. Seems very sloppily done to me. My friends group was pretty busy pre layoffs so they’re completely slammed now, everyone getting added to new deals on top of existing workload.
Think people are very angry since Blair has always preached the “we’re private, we’re not like other big banks” and this was a ruthless layoff on top of really bad recent bonuses. Not good for a bank that prides itself on culture…
My take is Blair got too cocky for it’s own good - it was in the right place at the right time (mid market tech and healthcare, mostly) when it all went haywire in 2020-2021 and they hired as if they were the next Evercore. Now the music stops and turns out they’re still just a MM bank that tried to grow really fast and they need to revert back to the model of a few years ago. Just sucks since I know many people who were impacted…
CEO/senior leadership heads deserve to roll here, they screwed up forecasting and fired a bunch of analysts and associates because of it. According to my friend not a single MD was let go…
-
Can anyone comment if first years were impacted across the board, or just in the groups hit the hardest (HC, Tech)?
My take is you wanted to watch them fail. The reality:
This isn’t a bank that “got cocky” they made a strategic intentional decision to capture a market opportunity and hired personnel to capture it, now the market opportunity isn’t there and they need to decrease personnel. Other banks did the same. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Evercore or any other bank in tech is feeling the same pressure WB is and is thinking of doing the same. They aren’t an anomaly, they were first and we are heading into a recession.
the argument is more that a bank like Blair is at the volatile end of the IB pecking order. Markets go crazy and deals pop off, top groups get choosier with mandates, Blair sees an explosion in deals in their wheelhouse and a bit outside of it (that in bad times lower BBs, EBs, etc. would compete for), interprets this as a market share trend for the bank vs cyclical, overhires. That dries up and the banks higher in the pecking order just reach down market but still need people to process those down-market deals. They still take a ton of time, the fees are just lower. Blair then gets smoked, transaction volume collapses, and they have way too many people.
it will impact everyone sure, but what person above said seems accurate
Hey, appreciate the comment: could you briefly explain why you think that this is the harbinger of a recession rather than just WB making a cyclical bet and having to lay off people?
WB MD: “Where are we on this book, meeting tomorrow? Needs to be printed tonight, I am flying in the morning.”
VP, Associate, Analyst: “”
MD: “?”
VP, Associate, Analyst: Email Bounces
HR: “Hello, hope you are well! Unfortunately these folks are no longer with the firm, have a great Pi Day!
Regards,
Us / They”
WB MD: sighs and mumbles, “got to make partner, got to make partner.”
Heard stories that were basically this… deals near done that are grinding to a halt because the entire team is gone
It was closer to 5% firm wide and 20% IB. Everything else you nailed. It was a shitshow.
I had a close friend affected by this wave. Let me share some rounded stats based on what they were comfortable sharing:
Of a little over 550 bankers, they laid off a little less than 90 (~16%). ~40% analysts, ~35% associates, ~15% VPs, 7% Directors, and 3% MDs. It is likely that this was decided in the past two weeks, as there were allegedly a number of executive committee meetings held, which may explain the blindsiding.
Come to HW! We won’t fire you, we’ll just work you till you quit :)
tempting... how are bonuses?
As1 was 175
reading above that 75% of the cuts were to analysts and associates. what a shame. and yet, unsurprising. despite what they say, this has always been a firm that shafted its junior team members unless the market was making it do otherwise.
what do you mean bro william blair is a family
"aka every william blair analyst"
What is the protocol for this? Do they have 2 weeks? Do they keep their LinkedIn title as IB Analyst until they find a new job?
ive seen someone keep their job title on linkedin for nearly a year until they found a new job. as it began taking longer and longer they removed months etc so just said 2021-2022 or something like that when they stayed Nov-Feb or something
Layoffs are effective immediately, but all people laid off are allowed to keep their linkedIn title for 2 weeks. After that, William Blair fines them $100/day (as per their employee agreement)
There’s no way that’s an enforceable policy
How is London impacted?
How does this affect incoming analysts/interns starting in the summer?
Saw that they have a Lev Fin team and they have no balance sheet… what do those guys do??
It’s basically debt advisory - same as any other boutique bank.
The provide professional and tailored lev fin advice…even though they never do any deals.
Basically like bringing consultants to the pitch.
Similar to like those random boutique capital advisory or capital raise shops that never actually lend any money or take any credit risk. It’s a sweet gig man.
Are lev fin fees similar to any other group's?
they’ve actually been killing it lmao. keeping the lights on
Incoming FT in a group not as badly affected (<10% layoffs). Should I start to look elsewhere? Due to some reasons I need to start asap so if they push the date again I'm screwed
Yes, look elsewhere. ASAP.
Where would you recommend looking given the current state of everything
Absolutely. Banks will be more receptive of you shopping your offer around while the Blair news is fresh IMO
mark
Hello guys how are you
For those laid off, what do you plan to do next? Associates specifically.
This isn’t that shocking, a few years back they cut public finance wholesale.
This is a WSJ article about WB layoff in 2001. Allegedly that was their first big layoff since the firm was founded.
It is funny how the exact same thing happened 20 years later. Same ole playbook
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