How Much Do Bank Rankings Really Matter?

All the top banks care about their rankings, with everybody competing to have the most deal flow and revenue. GS, JPM ,MS, BAML, Citi are constantly fighting for the top spot, but how much does it really matter. Do the clients care about it? Does it really contribute to how much deal flow a bank will get in the future? I'm a student so I don't understand all of it yet. Am I missing something?

6 Comments
 

League tables and deal rankings are about showing your strengths. They are a constant barometer of how a firm is doing - to the point that sometimes a bank will forego fees in lieu of deal credit, especially in more complex deals with lots of moving parts, whether due to activism or regulatory issues.

Rankings and league tables, whether they show M&A, capital markets, syndicated financing, restructuring, etc... they are a sort of short-hand that can quickly and visually sum up who is doing what where and how well.

 

I would think exit opps are more nuanced than simply just having deal notches on your belt.

Just like a bank's deal ranking shows their strengths, when you are looking to jump from one shop to another, there's your own inherent strengths and what you yourself bring to the table - and yes, one element of that is the deals you might have been exposed to, but there's also what you know, who you know and the why behind your jumping shops, which can often be due to you feeling that you're not getting exposure to the deals and skills that you're looking to compile.

There are many variables, such as if you're wanting to work on more tech deals but your current shop's got more oil & gas or media or SaaS deals in their pipeline... or if you're interested in concentrating on advisory or activism or restructuring aspects and not on a specific sector or industry.

 
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