Obviously, there are stigmas about certain prominent industry players, especially in regards to brokerage shops. I get the prestige associated with certain firms, but for those with legitimate experience/knowledge re: working at or with Meridian: could an analyst there get similar (or even better) exposure than an HFF/Eastdil?
NYC is its own animal and I think the distinction of some of these boutique shops within the market is unique. I just can't make up my mind on whether the questionable reputations of certain people/firms is legit.
This forum is filled with many entrepreneurial-thinking young people who seem to excel at understanding the true value of learning. For someone who is pretty certain they eventually want to make the leap to REPE in either an AM or Acquisitions capacity, would a place like Meridian provide legit exit opps (if it were an active/intelligent team)?
I would say yes it could. At the end of the day experience is what counts. So if you find a team that truly gets you a good experience and strong contacts then you should be fine. That being said firms like Eastdil and HFF have more of an institutional scope than Meridian. Meaning you will get more exposure to institutional clients and bigger more complex deals. Do you see Boston Properties or Tishman Speyer using Meridian to sell a property or raise debt? Usually no, they would go with Eastdil, HFF, CBRE (Stacom Team), or CW (Spies and Harmon Team). Rubbing shoulders with this type of client usually helps a lot when it comes to exit ops.
This makes sense. Although I guess what I'm getting at is I don't necessarily feel as if the more esteemed brokerages you mentioned are truly working on a larger volume of the institutional-type deals in comparison to the boutiques. Could just be wishful thinking though.
Wouldn't be shocked if a few guys at some boutiques do some cool deals as well. But there is no doubt the majority go to the ones I listed. Just because you work on MM deals doesn't mean you can't move into PE though. I know a kid that worked at Marcus and Millichap who got a gig at a decent fund so anything is possible.
Meridian works on some pretty large debt deals. I would say it depends on where you want to end up. Obviously the megafunds will be poaching the Eastdil/CBREs but no reason why you can’t get in with a good shop from Meridian.
I hope this thread has solid answers. I posted a few weeks ago about them and an opportunity there, but not sure if it's worth it to leave a CBRE/JLL shop for them.
Be forewarned that the following reply is not politically correct.
I don't know anyone at Meridian who isn't religious. If you're religious (judging by your name, you might be) then it could be a good place, especially if you want to transition to a New York City family office. But, if you aren't religious, I wouldn't work there.
I'm friends with a few groups that do deals with Meridian and they candidly told me that Meridian recruits young Jewish kids from no-name schools who want to hustle and then puts them through the cold calling program to see who sticks. If you're not of the tribe, I wouldn't expect a fair shake.
Meridian does do a LOT of deals, so you will see a lot of transaction volume. Furthermore, they control relationships with a handful of lenders that put out a lot of money every year. It's an influential shop. For you, it comes down to whether or not you're a good fit for their firm.
Fitting, given your user name
I can attest to knowing one college buddy who isn't Jewish and isn't outwardly christian who has been successful there. He said he was told something like if he works Jewish holidays or the Jewish sabbath he's liable to be fired, but forced downtime isn't the worst thing. He very much has a hustler personality though, so perhaps he's just a good fit, religion aside.
Thanks for both replies. CRE - I think this makes sense. I am Jewish (reformed, not religious whatsoever), but my username is just a Seinfeld reference....c'mon now.
I don't see myself at the type of family office that Non-PC Broker is referring to, but I also do happen to know that the teams I'd be interested in do a lot of deals with sponsors that don't fit that mold at all. Again, I do think there is a stigma and I'm sure there are firms that choose not to work with them given their "culture", but I think the truth is that there are plenty of legit brokers there who, religious or not, know the business and deal with a wide array of lenders and sponsors.
Can you imagine if a christian firm did the same thing? imagine the shit show
That was satisfying.
James Famularo went there after Eastern Consolidated. Don’t know him personally but his LI says he’s part of a Lebanese business group, so that’s probably a good indicator one doesn’t have to be Jewish. Though, he could be religious nonetheless.
There are Jews in Lebanon..
I don't hear great things if you are not an originator and not Jewish.
But, I have known some brokers, and really nice guys who worked there.
What someone above said is correct they get a basement full of kids from the Yeshiva and cold call and win spots based on attrition. These are the guys that take deals off the market by if not outright lying then mispricing rates.
Guess this is the stigma I am afraid of. But as Non-PC Broker said above, I honestly think this is becoming a thing of the past. They have begun to attain legit talent, both from UG and from competitors.
To be honest, it’s the case for a majority of the smaller brokerage shops in NYC.
Are you trying to get out of HFF or was this just a general question? Based upon your previous posts it seems like you’re trying to leave. If so, I definitely wouldn’t leave an HFF at the Analyst level to jump to Meridian.
Welp. Fuck me then I guess.
"What someone above said is correct they get a basement full of kids from the Yeshiva" Im dead
Would you say the same thing for Eastern Union?
Just wanted to throw this out there in order to ensure some of less experienced people understand the magnitude and scale of Meridian:
New Yorks Top Commercial Loan Brokerages 2017 (Per TheRealDeal) Rank 1: Meridian Capital Group - $15B Rank 2: Eastdil Secured - $5.8B Rank 3: Newmark Knight Frank - $3.4B
Meridian is top notch in NY but nationally per the 2017 MBA's rankings the top debt brokerages are HFF, Eastdil and CBRE with HFF doing more than twice the volume of Meridian. According to the MBA's rankings on a national scale Meridian is in the same tier as Walker & Dunlop, JLL, Berkadia. But that is not a knock on Meridian though, its a top notch firm. NY is a weird in the sense that you often have botiques like HKS ranking in the top 10 brokerages in the city.
sheesh.
I have a lot of respect for meridian as a firm, they do a lot of business and work on big and small deals, local investors and institutional. The knock on Metidian is they hire way too many brokers and while there are some very good brokers, there are some very shitty brokers that are desperate, lazy, lying, incompetent assholes. They should probably be more selective in hiring, but they did like $40bn last year so what do I know...
And yes, HFF and Eastdil do a lot of the big sexy institutional deals, but that world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The sr broker gets the lion share of the pie, and the reaminder of the fee is pretty thin whe it’s split at least 5 ways, as it often is on these large deals. Not to mention everyone’s competing on price in that world and you have to cut your fee to very low levels to win the business.
As someone that’s worked in the institutional side and mid market side, I’ll tell you the latter is much better. I’d much rather work with a client that has skin in the game than some w-2 acquisitions guy with no equity at tishman or Hines
+1. This is fucking spot on.
Even WITHIN a place at HFF, it’s mind boggling to me how much more attainable success is for the brokers that focus on the MM. In addition to what you said about skin in the game, the fees are also substantially higher pound for pound.
Can you comment on the market for fees? As in, a MM $20 million financing, assuming we have the same middle market definition, what would the fee be?
Fees I've seen are 75-100bps, and always 100bps for construction. For institutional deals it is more like 50bps-75bps, or flat fees on giant deals.
I would agree with this. They should be more selective.
Despite that they, are still killing it and have great relationships with top institutional lenders such as JP, GS, Capital One, etc
Sweet spot in brokerage IMO is the upper middle market space. You can charge middle market or slightly cheaper point fees but deal with legit sponsors and legit capital sources. We were getting like 20-30 bids on the $15-25mm workforce housing properties we brought to market - shit was insane. After structuring in incentive fees we were getting fees in the $350-450K range for selling $20mm apartment complexes.
For loans of $20MM and below, I typically see at least 50 bps, even for straightforward agency deals. If the client is grinding you down to 30 bps, you need to ask yourself if it's someone you want to work for.....
if you are charging 30bps you are devaluing yourself as a broker
Not exactly. People have very different business models in the MM space. The vanilla core MM perm space is super compressed on fees. Meridian has done deals for free to keep their dominance and i wouldn't be surprised if their average fee across the 15b they do annually is less then 40bps. On the other hand my shop focuses on more complicated transactions which are usually Higher yield and we average 100bps so sometime we get more then a point. I think fees are all relative and the higher the cost of capital and the more complex the transaction the more you can charge. Getting a stretched senior 50 mil construction loan will usually get you a higher net fee then a $200 million agency deal. But I have friend who runs his boutique where he gets 25-35bps a deal and does a minimum of 750 million a year. He gets very vanilla deals and crushes it. The fact is any team that helps you stay on the broker side and will turn you into a producer is going to make you successful. Everyone on this forum talks about the modeling and being a top analyst but its such a small part of the game. Producing and closing deals at any brokerage job will make you far richer then eclipsing your career as middle management at a REPE shop. Some of these dumb brokers at meridian make more than $5 million a year and went to yeshiva and not Wharton. This shit isnt rocket science and balls and risk are rewarded more then smarts and analysis skills
This exactly. A broker can be terrible at modeling and have horrible writing skills, but if he's got a huge rolodex and can aggressively make calls all day he can make a mint.
Just closed a deal with Eastdil and they charged 30 bps on a $430MM loan.
my comment was regarding loans $20MM and below.
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