You will likely have to lateral to a bigger bank to go to a MM PE firm

 

Its fairly group dependent. There are some great MDs there, but there are also not so great MDs that couldn't sell sand to a desert. HC was one of thier highest performing groups, but they are more equity focused, they are attempting to build out there M&A franchise, but the quality of deal is not great. Tech is solid and I think the LevFin has okay exits just bc of how technical the work is generally speaking. 

 

Stifel is a totally mixed bag. There is a really weird amalgamation of MDs from different boutique banks that Stifel has acquired over the years, and as you would expect, quality fluctuates significantly depending on the MD / group. I have also heard of them making some very questionable hires for Heads of specific groups. Almost seems to me like they're super intent on growing their reach and size but doing it in a very fast / impatient way where they end up making some acquisitions and hires that make sense on paper but don't pan out because the people they're bringing on have better resumes than actual deal chops if you get what I'm saying. It happens a lot when you're in high-growth mode, it's hard to grow fast and with 100% efficiency. I'm still Bullish on them in the long run, think they'll get better and better as they prune all of their expansion hires/acquisitions, trim some fat and double down on what works. We shall see though, execution is never guaranteed.  

Just make sure you do your DD on the senior bankers you'll be working under. If you're doing solid deals and building up your modeling / transaction chops I think you'll find yourself a PE gig in the next two years as the market heats up. Might be looking at an upstart $1B AUM growth equity shop instead of a $20B AUM buyout firm, but you'll find something solid with time and persistence. There is a ton of random variability that goes into this other than what MM bank you were at.

 
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Did my time at Stifel a couple years ago albeit in a regional office, in MM PE now. But echoing what others have said above - your experience will be highly group dependent, HC is strong, Diversified Industrials will get you good reps, Tech was strong when i was there but market may be different now, LevFin is a good spot too - worked with them a lot and the team is sharp. Know more than a handful in MM PE, a couple guys who lateraled to EB/BB, a few A2A's, a few went Corp Dev for F500 co's. FWIW pay was above the median in terms of street in my time too. All the major headhunters hit me up as an analyst and was able to land a lot of interviews (off-cycle, you won't get looks for on-cycle)  but that was in a much hotter market so times may have changed. 

 

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