Summer analyst offers for both. Wondering what would be a better option long term, in terms of exit ops and general prestige/reputation of the firms.
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Audax if you know you want to be in PE long term.
Audax
Guggenheim isn't the best for exit opps to PE so if you want to be in PE, take Audax. If you're unsure, depends on fit and stuff. But generally, Gugg isn't a top IB shop, more of a mid-tier MM that thinks way too highly of itself because of it's AM business.
If it were like JPM vs Audax, I would generally advise that your two years in IB are great training and experience, and you'd probably be able to exit to a better or bigger PE firm from a top BB than a MM PE fund like Audax.
Prestige is a bullshit metric btw - don't look at the vault rankings or that shit. Figure out what works best for what you want to do, and where you like based on culture. It's your career, not some sophomore on WSO's career.
That you could be so poorly informed as to call Guggenheim middle-market makes it clear you're not at a legitimate shop. No two ways about it.
Each year they are on some of the largest deals...(e.g. in 2016 they were on the 4th largest deal of the year. In 2015 they were on the largest)
You probably don't have bad intentions, but giving advice when you're so far out of the loop is just silly.
lol at the fact that you're coming at me on a personal level because you disagree with my assessment of a relatively unknown shop. Where are you working? Judging from your post history, seems to be Guggenheim. Lol, have fun in purgatory....
Yeah you're right I'm not particularly well informed on Gugg - that's the fucking point. They're not that relevant. I didn't say anything about their culture or anything specific about their deal flow because yeah, I don't really know what they're up to. I simply said that PE exit opps aren't that great because they're not that well known and their deal flow isn't what the more elite small firms have been pulling in lately. That's a fact, ask anyone.
But since you seem to know so much, I looked them up and outside of the HC space, they have won very few mandates, and sure they've been on a couple of deals (mostly not as lead btw), but a couple of big deals over a few years doesn't make a shop. Most of their press releases were MM or otherwise small deals. Getting on a couple of marquee deals because the lead banks want your AM arm to owe them one isn't being a top shop or the type of place where you're likely to see major or relevant deals.
TLDR; Go fuck yourself and have a nice time at your middling firm
Keep proving me right, kid
I know quite a few guys (at varying levels and ages) at Guggenheim, and I know nobody at Audax. It's always a good idea in my opinion to talk to actual people who are at those places before forming too strong of an opinion. With that disclaimer, this is what I'd personally think about:
Guggenheim IB in NYC: (1) Probably will have a more expansive finance / wall st network after 2-3 years; (2) From my experience, I think there's value (for a lot of people anyways, granted everyone is different) to start in IB and become very strong at the fundamentals (mechanical ability, formatting, "banker eye", etc.) before switching to a buy-side role; (3) Group dependent: have heard the experiences in healthcare / TMT are strong, while in a group like Industrials for example, there has been extremely light dealflow; (4) Echoing others, placements are not as set-in-stone as a traditional bulge bracket-type bank...there is a non-negligible shot that if you decided you do want to go the PE route, that you could end up at a "worse" (bear with me...very vague prestige-wise sense) mid-market shop than Audax after your 2 years
Audax PE Analyst in Boston: (1) Reputable mid-market PE immediately from undergrad, which is respectable and makes transitioning to other PE easier than from a Guggenheim-type bank; (1b) On the other hand, experience is decidedly less applicable if you were to decide you did not want to do PE, and especially if you decided you did not want to do finance; (2) Boston v. NYC is a whole discussion in and of itself; (3) You hear of the 1st year v. 2nd year analyst work-split in IBD and how as a 1st year, a lot of times the sexier work goes to older analysts...I can only imagine this dynamic between a PE shop that hires juniors who have 2-3 years of IB experience v. an analyst right out of undergrad; (4) Again, no idea, but from my understanding, many buy-side analyst programs will comp analysts against IB street - if that happens, you'll end up making less at Audax than Guggenheim (this is more of a comment than a consideration given the magnitude of the pay difference v. a potential career-defining choice)
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