California job market thoughts
I'm about to graduate with my BS in economics, and me and my girlfriend are looking to move out to California later in the summer. I know SF is one of the bigger financial centers nowadays, but I was hoping to get a little more information on how it stacks up to NY and Chicago.
My career goals right now are to get into ER or the emerging markets. It was my understanding that the firms in SF tends to be more Globally minded with a heavier focus on international markets, and was wondering if anyone could confirm that. Also, I was curious about the presence of high finance type jobs outside of the Bay Area, I'm in Florida now and the job market here is pretty limited.
SF is very highly tech focused. Very. I wouldn't say that it's more globally focused although 20+ years ago I would have agreed that it had more East Asian (then japan) related business. That may still be there but now it's tech.
Other cities with finance: Chicago and Boston, Houston for energy, then probably LA, Charlotte then the Phillys Atlantas and other sizeable cities all have some.
Thanks for the solid info. Would you happen to know of any industry focus in LA? I know there's alot of military stuff in San Diego, I'm just trying to get a feel for all their big areas and what to read up on.
To follow up, how is the finance scene in LA? I know there's some monkeys on the board that are there. Just curious about finance in LA in general. VC, PE, IBD and corp fin. Also any real estate finance such as REIT's or REPE?
Cheers
There's a decent number of banking/finance opportunities in LA like any other major city. However, compared to NYC or Chicago where the primary industry is finance, entertainment is the primary industry in LA and tech is the primary industry in SF, so you're a bit more of an outsider vs. NYC.
As for LA's industry focus, almost all major industry groups are covered there.
Since your goal is to go into ER, you need to realize that many ER departments' SF offices have a tech focus so that's likely what you'll be covering, with the exception of ER shops that are HQ'ed in SF.
Lots of distressed shops in LA.
I second the above. Milken's office was located in LA back in the prime years of the junk bond bubble and a lot of smart players in the HY/Distressed place set up their own shops in the area after the Drexel collapse. A lot of those shops are now (the) major players in the space (Ares etc.)
I live in LA and work in finance and I can tell you there is a good amount of finance in LA. @milehigh is correct in that entertainment rules LA, however there is also a huge amount of commerical real estate (CRE) here. CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, NAI Capital, Charles Dunn, LA Realty Partners, etc. are all here so you can definitely get into brokerage or corp. finance/buyout related work at CRE firms.
There's also a very good representation of IBD, Asset Management, and Private Wealth/Private Banking in LA. All of the major BBs (BAML, Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS), middle market (Evercore Partners, Greenhill, Houlihan Lokey, Imperial Capital, Jefferies, Lazard, and Moelis), and some boutiques (Capstone Partners, McColl, Intrepid Investment Bankers). Additionally, each firm has an Asset Management/Private Wealth Group in LA too.
What undergrad school are you coming from? I'm a recent graduate who is working in Finance at a tech company. I was from an LAC on the east coast and the transition is not easy. I had a BB IBD background and I consider myself lucky to have made it to SF. The job market is strong, but high finance is tech focused and limited. There is also a lot of competition from the Stanford and Berkeley kids who want to do banking.
I think SF is a fantastic place to live, but you might need to be a little more creative with your job search if you want to end up out here. Or you'll need to have some contacts and a strong background.
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