Credit Suisse, Barclays, and Jefferies Healthcare

Currently a HC banker at a BB with pretty bad deal flow and looking to lateral. Can anyone provide some info on the deal flow and culture in the healthcare groups at CS, Barclays, and Jefferies?

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Healthcare banker at GS/JPM/BofA and have friends at 2 of the 3 groups you listed.

Jefferies: Healthcare is one of their best groups. Dealflow is extremely strong. They do a ridiculous number of healthcare services M&A deals, and also have a very solid biotech & biopharma practice. Their healthcare ECM practice is insane - at the height of the ECM craze this year they were doing something like 5 biotech IPOs and follow-ons every week. I've some friends there, and it seems like the group is an absolute sweatshop with some very old-school blue-blooded seniors (but the juniors are pretty fratty and chill). Exits there are also very good, a handful of MFs, and very solid placement into UMM and MM PE.

Barclays: Does very well in services, and is arguably the best BB in Healthcare IT. ECM dealflow and exposure is also solid. The hours there are pretty long, but the culture definitely seems to be solid (few sharp elbows, seniors actually care about you, junior people are chill). PE placement isn't the best out of Barclays groups (except for that year where the analysts were all unusually strong and placed lights out iykyk), but MF is possible and UMM/MM placements are very common.

Credit Suisse: Not one of the top groups there. They have a solid ECM practice driven by SPACs, which CS is all-around strong in, but their M&A practice is pretty weak. Don't know a lot about PE placement or culture there.

For overall Healthcare exposure, I'd say Jefferies = Barclays >> Credit Suisse. You'll get your modeling reps in, as both Jefferies and Barclays HC have solid M&A dealflow and do in-house M&A. If you care about ECM exposure (personally I find biotech ECM to be the sexiest part of my job), I'd go Jefferies. If not, I'd go Barclays for the culture.

If you just want PE, I'd go Barclays > Jefferies > Credit Suisse. From what I've seen, Barclays still edges out Jefferies in terms of PE placement. I have no clue about Credit Suisse, but I don't hear a lot about their placement so I assume they'd be last.

 

Overall it's a solid group, but it's been being robbed of its top talent and is far from what it once was. The biotech and biopharma practice has been pretty spotty after losing some key seniors, but ECM dealflow is still decent. MedTech team has decent M&A dealflow and really good ECM deal flow. The Healthcare Services & IT practice is still solid, but used to be much better before a bunch of seniors left. I will say the analyst experience isn't the greatest because the M&A group holds the pen on most healthcare modeling. You certainly can get exposure to M&A modeling, but you definitely have to (1) be in good standing with your staffer and (2) be very proactive about it. Hours are quite bad, but overall culture isn't too bad. There's constant work and pitching, but overall everyone in the group is quite nice. Seniors are relentless with giving you work, but they act human and aren't that sharp-elbowed. The juniors are all pretty close and extremely nice people, which makes the hours much more bearable. Turnover's been pretty high though (due to hours). Exits are decent, not the best from BofA, but not the worst. placement into UMM and MM is decent, but MF is definitely a lot harder than other groups at BofA.

Overall, personally I'd take Barclays and Jefferies over BofA HC, especially since Barclays and Jefferies do in-house modeling, which is something that I personally weigh a lot.

 

Had a call with an analyst at Jeff HC that I was close with when in college, and he straight up told me that his hours are insane, he was like be really sure you want to work here. 

 

Barclays literally lost their global co-head of HC M&A to SVB Leerink this morning so not sure how much of a hit they will take from that.

 

That's why BB HC groups seem to fluctuate so much in quality of deal flow because of boutique exits from senior bankers. Pretty sure Credit Suisse experienced something very similar when their BSD MD left for CVP (Stuart Smith was the #1 dealmaker on the street in 2011 and has been on a ton of marquee deals). Had a strong MD or two I believe leave to Guggenheim soon after as well.

 

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