Allen & Co. - Best place to work hands down, great rep great culture, small team but great flow Morgan Stanley - Top telcom fee earner, plays okay in media too; tech group is separate but is the market leader Goldman - Still hangs on because they are GS, group has culture issues and has lost a ton of top producers (GS was not in the top 5 for Telcom Fees last year, barely made the Media or Tech top 5) Evercore - Has been involved in a bunch of high profile transactions, but for junior folks it is still a sweat shop JPM - has balance sheet will travel; has thrown around a massive amount of capital in the last few years to push itself into some big deals

There are your top five

Lazard - these are the cats to watch, added some significant players last year

 
B-School Bound:
Allen & Co. - Best place to work hands down, great rep great culture, small team but great flow Morgan Stanley - Top telcom fee earner, plays okay in media too; tech group is separate but is the market leader Goldman - Still hangs on because they are GS, group has culture issues and has lost a ton of top producers (GS was not in the top 5 for Telcom Fees last year, barely made the Media or Tech top 5) Evercore - Has been involved in a bunch of high profile transactions, but for junior folks it is still a sweat shop JPM - has balance sheet will travel; has thrown around a massive amount of capital in the last few years to push itself into some big deals

There are your top five

Lazard - these are the cats to watch, added some significant players last year

Eh... you're right about JPM just getting into deals at the last moment because they can provide financing that other places aren't willing to do... not sure if that makes them top 5

Allen & Company is awesome, but they rely on their incredibly well connected, badass senior bankers for everything. Forgot where I read this, but there was some article where they said they were trying to improve the career opportunities for junior bankers, a lot of people don't see it as a great place to start a career, most of their senior guys did big things somewhere else first.

Evercore is great!

 
bankerchic:
Goldman TMT. Hands down.

I have to admit, I had to stifle a chuckle when I read this. It never ceases to amaze me how people will make statements with the full force of conviction from very little knowledge.

How do you know this? From your personal work with Gene Sykes?

I suppose it's hard to put my amusement into context without knowing more about me, but I have to say that to claim that Goldman's TMT group is "hands down" the best is patently asinine. It's a very good practice, but a stretch of immeasurable proportions to claim that it is unrivalled.

My best advice to young bankers is that you should use your brain. Quit listening to what everyone is telling you, and use your powers of rational thought and critical thinking for a moment. Just because the press is enamored (for the moment) by the appearance that Goldman can do no wrong doesn't mean you should take that at face value.

While I intensely dislike Bear's culture, can you say Goldman's telecom practice is stronger than Bear Stearns'? Despite the fact that it is "only" Bear Stearns, that group has put up some of the biggest prints in the sector, including almost every Verizon deal done. Goldman has been noticeably missing on the advisor credits for most of the largest deals, despite its platinum plated reputation. What does that mean to you?

At Goldman, there is a tendency to dismiss mandates by the likes of JPM, Citi, and UBS by saying that those engagements are balance sheet driven. However, a really smart (or reflective) banker would ask himself: what about the other side of that coin? How many mandates does Goldman win simply because it is Goldman Sachs? Doesn't that mean that if you look at another firm with a lesser brand that wins nearly as much (say, Credit Suisse in technology) it would imply that they're as good or better to win that sort of market share with a brand disadvantage?

How about a firm like Allen & Co., with no balance sheet and a very nichey reputation? Doesn't some critical thought imply that since Nancy Peretsman beats Goldman regularly despite the boutique (and let's face it, downright cheap) supporting infrastructure mean that she's likely better at her work than Goldman's team?

Here's some food for thought: Goldman's bankers are for the most part anonymous, because that's how the firm likes it - that's a core component of Goldman culture. By contrast, look at Morgan Stanley. Look at the names that have come out of Morgan over the years. Greenhill. Perella. Quattrone. Boutros. Pandit. And yet, every time one of them departs as an acknowledged rainmaker, what happens to Morgan? It's still Morgan Stanley, and never seems to lose a beat. That's impressive depth.

Goldman Sachs has its reputation for a reason. You'll be hard pressed to find a bigger Goldman booster than me. It's a great firm, and an incubator for some of the most influential leaders in the world of finance. But to claim that Goldman is clearly "better" than its rivals, in my opinion, is an exceedingly foolish claim.

One last point. In the 70s, Kidder Peabody was not unlike Goldman today. In the 80s, Drexel Burnham Lambert was a far more dominating firm than was Goldman. Both are gone. Goldman came out of the CDO/CMBS debacle this quarter looking relatively rosy because of one good trade. Talk to the people that know, and they will tell you it could have easily gone the other way. Like running into the mother of a banker at the doctor's, sometimes luck matters. Get unlucky once, and you end up crawling around the middle east and Singapore with a tin cup looking for a few billion dollars. Get really unlucky, and you end up on the scrap heap of history.

This is a business that teaches both individuals and firms humility quickly indeed.

You do make a good point. I suppose I speak from an exit-ops point of view. I have a good friend who works in Goldman TMT and have watched him get offers left and right from top HFs and PE shops. I do suppose it is ignorant to make such a claim without evaluating valuable, deeper arguments you make.

 
Best Response
bankerchic:
You do make a good point. I suppose I speak from an exit-ops point of view. I have a good friend who works in Goldman TMT and have watched him get offers left and right from top HFs and PE shops. I do suppose it is ignorant to make such a claim without evaluating valuable, deeper arguments you make.

My commentary wasn't intended to be a criticism of you in the least, Bankerchic. Before I was an analyst, I thought I knew a great many things that I re-assessed over time. While I have a much better grasp of how the business works today, I suspect my views will continue to morph with time and experience.

The day I stop learning new things that causes me to question what I think I know today - well, that's probably the day I should find something new to do with my day job.

My point was simply that a good banker (or intelligence officer, or diplomat, or consultant) should always question those assumptions that underlie his or her decision-making process. You'd be amazed by how often what leads you astray is something that you took for granted.

 

...do your research whether you want to do "big" deals and have big names on your resume or you actually want to DO deals. You may be stuck for two years on a big account (e.g. Verizon) and not do meaningful work ever - unless you find building hypothetical models of Verizon acquiring T-Mobile or doing mindless analysis for the client who does not want to give the dull work to his own employees meaningful...

To GenghisKhan's point - Bear has a VERY strong TMT franchise, especially in Telecom and Media. People on the Street know the groups, know the teams - just because it is Goldman, Morgan, Bear or whatever does not mean that it is necessarily better than Greenhill/Allen&Co or some other boutique.

 

I don't actually work at Bear, but know some analysts who currently do. I also attended an information session and interviewed with them for FT this year, meeting a good number of bankers at all levels. Based on my impression, the culture seems different, probably a bit more "macho," aggressive, and "frat-like" than some of its NYC competitors. I found that the bankers who work there are "outwardly" impressed with themselves and the fact that they work at Bear. Not so much arrogant, but very vocal in company pride. This might irritate some people.

Having summered at another bank (with people that formerly worked at Bear) and talking to my friends over there, I feel that Bear has a tendency to run its junior people into the ground and is, in general, one of the most demanding places for a junior banker to work. Up there with UBS and GS as an analyst. Obviously every good bank in NYC has a bit of a "sweatshop" culture, it's banking after all, but I got the impression that Bear, which is still fairly "old-school" in a lot of ways, might be a little worse in this regard.

Still, I think Bear is a solid firm with a very strong TMT presence (just look at the deals they worked on in the past year or two), but the culture is definitely unique. You'll definitely realize during the process whehth

 
bigbadbanker1:
I don't actually work at Bear, but know some analysts who currently do. I also attended an information session and interviewed with them for FT this year, meeting a good number of bankers at all levels. Based on my impression, the culture seems different, probably a bit more "macho," aggressive, and "frat-like" than some of its NYC competitors. I found that the bankers who work there are "outwardly" impressed with themselves and the fact that they work at Bear. Not so much arrogant, but very vocal in company pride. This might irritate some people.

Having summered at another bank (with people that formerly worked at Bear) and talking to my friends over there, I feel that Bear has a tendency to run its junior people into the ground and is, in general, one of the most demanding places for a junior banker to work. Up there with UBS and GS as an analyst. Obviously every good bank in NYC has a bit of a "sweatshop" culture, it's banking after all, but I got the impression that Bear, which is still fairly "old-school" in a lot of ways, might be a little worse in this regard.

Still, I think Bear is a solid firm with a very strong TMT presence (just look at the deals they worked on in the past year or two), but the culture is definitely unique. You'll definitely realize during the process whehth

I think that many of the things said in this post properly reflect the stereotype of Bear's culture.

My issue with Bear's culture is not that it is good, bad or indifferent. Simply that I dont' think it's a good fit with who I think I am professionally. Bear is intensely entrepeneurial, and has been said to carry many of the elements of its history as a trading house into its investment banking culture.

It works very well for them, and I know that many of my friends swear by the culture. They consider Bear's culture to be collegial and non-hierarchical, and a place that rewards success and stardom. For many of my contemporaries, nothing could be worse than subsuming their (strong) personalities for the Borg-like facelessness of Goldman Sachs.

The reason Bear's culture doesn't work well for me is that it rewards the strongest and the toughest disproportionately. To me, it's like a schoolyard where the biggest, baddest bullies end up on top. I like to think I'm a bit more humane than the average banker, at least to my subordinates. I have a weakness for the underdog, one that manifests itself in my interviewing and recruiting efforts. I take an enormous amount of satisfaction in the development of my analysts, associates and vice presidents, but I think my approach probably would to too "kid glove"-ish for what I understand works best at Bear.

 

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