Hi all, I am a sophomore premed student interested in IB in NY. When exploring different banks, what do you consider? how would you compare Jefferies, Centerview, Cowen, SVB Leerink, Piper Sandler and Credit Suisse for HC banking?
| +404 | Evercore Intern Seizure | 62 | 59m |
| +98 | UBS IB Americas has failed, now behind Santander and Stiffel | 27 | 1h |
| +79 | JPM M&A is Gone??? Purely Coverage Banking??? | 41 | 8m |
| +60 | How do I understand vs. just memorizing? | 11 | 4h |
| +48 | Losing my personality in Banking | 9 | 1d |
| +45 | The good and bad with Wells Fargo | 12 | 3h |
| +42 | Associate & Above IB exits | 18 | 6h |
| +35 | Sent my Claude prompt to 200+ Teams chat. MD wants to see me Monday. | 18 | 8h |
| +33 | Incoming IB Analyst: Best Ways to Prepare? | 13 | 3h |
| +31 | Tech to IB Pivot | 20 | 17h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
Depends on the vertical you're talking about (i.e. biotech, pharma, services, devices, etc.).
Just my quick take on the companies you listed:
+SB. Would add that Jefferies does some M&A too and answer your (?) that they do a good amount of biopharma ER.
Yeah, sorry, wasn't too sure, but I guess Jefferies just does a mix of everything.
Pretty accurate.
CVP is second to none in the Healthcare M&A space, particularly sells-sides. Especially Biopharma. HC services is also extremely strong. With strong deal flow comes a tough work environment / work-life balance. Their market share in meaningful Biotech sell-sides is draw dropping: Like >50%
Jeffries mostly does mid-cap / smaller cap deals (All Biotech deals fall into this category). They are known for biotech IPOs and lead deals but think they do quite a bit of M&A and lending on the services side as well. Overall they have a massive HC team globally by sheer headcount.
CS is doing very well now, but has been streaky. They benefit from being a leader in SPACs. They are fundamentally different from the rest since they are a full service bank. Strong in both Pharma and Services. Fair share of ECM / M&A, but also the rest of the services, e.g. DCM, non-IG, etc. Do more work with large cap names than every else (except for CVP) Think they’ve hired quite a few MDs / seniors recently.
Leerink has always been a good specialty boutique, but think most of their focus is Biotech ECM activity. They are heavily weighted to their Boston office, unsure of the split to NYC. Definitely lead deals in the space here and there. Not really aware of them doing much M&A. Saw they hired two HC tech MDs from Guggenheim recently.
Cowen gets their fair share of ECM activities, but I’m not sure if I ever see them leading deals. Often the 3rd book runner. Still very well respected in the HC space, but a step below the rest. Less familiar with them.
Cowen is a lead book runner on almost all HC deals that they’re on.
can I PM?
different firms. CS is a BB -- good deal flow, a solid but definitely not a top HC group. CVP basically only does large-cap M&A deals. The others are smaller banks that focus more on the MM
where would u rank them.
No. CV > Jef > Cowen > Piper > Leerink
Doesn't mean that SVB doesn't get some decent ECM, but far less M&A than the others.
Forget about the "ranks". All of these banks do really well in the space, and anyone should be happy to end up at any one of these places.
But to answer your question, yes, SVB Leerink is comparable to Jefferies.
However, I would slightly disagree with the guy above regarding his take on CVP. Yes, CVP largely does large-cap M&A deals, but they do participate in some mid-cap deals from time to time (e.g. Rosemont/Inflexion, Ultragenyx/Dimension, etc.)
Not that ranking is super important and you are right to say these shops are all good in their own ways its still important to distinguish them to a certain level. For example, if you have an offer from all of them 9.9/10 times its CVP no question
It seems disingenuous to compare SVBL with Jef. SVB's M&A deals are relatively tiny if they are exclusive or playing the lead advisory role. Jef is doing upper MM and billion dollar deals regularly.
Solid point. But I would shy away from thinking that IB/ranking should be purely based on M&A activity. Don't get me wrong, M&A plays a huge part but there are other aspects in which SVBL certainly shines over Jefferies (i.e. ER and ECM). Plus, as someone said before, they are different firms. SVBL's specialty aren't those UMM/billion dollar deals but that should not discredit the firm from being a top player in the biotech/biopharma space.
Edited: Additionally, if we were to do rankings based off of M&A activity, I would not throw Cowen that high. Cowen, like SVBL, participates in a lot of ECM.
Disclaimer: I do not work at SVBL.
Agreed on this. More on CS, sponsors business is also #1 on street and they're #1 in SPACs so good amount of work comes from those two lines of business for the HC side of things. They lost a few MDs to centerview and guggenheim right before covid hit, have hired a ton more MDs since then including one who spent a decade at MS who's been on some pretty high profile stuff. CEO has publicly stated theyre looking to invest more in HC and Tech banking as well
Anyone heard of Edgemont partners and their rep
Decent LMM group for HC services. Some negatives cultural and pay things if you search recent threads.
Centerview is in a different league than all the other names mentioned and isn’t comparable. They are extremely strong in large cap pharma/biotech M&A and work on similar transactions as GS/MS/JPM. Jeff is also pretty strong in HC and works in a lot of smaller deals and is a bookrunner on a good amount of IPOs. I don’t think Credit Susie is that strong of a BB in HC. The other shops you mentioned are really strong in HC ECM.
thoughts on Barclays HC?
Barclays is pretty good. I feel like the BBs are roughly JPM/MS/GS, Barclays/BAML, UBS/CS/Citi, DB
Citi deserves a tier of its own imo or to be put with barclays/baml - never seen CS/UBS on any big hc deals.
Whoever says jefferies isn’t top tier in healthcare automatically discredits themselves. Jefferies controls a majority of the market share in healthcare. They are one of the top teams in MM HC.
as someone who's not up-to-date with deals, does JEF work on MM deals mainly or do they also do large-cap deals?
they do both but ton of large cap
Thoughts on Cain Bros?
HC services - kill that space
You forgot Cain Brothers???
Echoing adding Cain to the list, would also make mention of MTS Health Partners and Torreya Partners as well for M&A/asset sales, and Canaccord Genuity for ECM.
Commodi consequatur maiores architecto architecto. Nihil qui quaerat aut nisi qui sapiente. Officiis animi qui culpa fugit accusamus dolor nostrum. Et veniam et dolor molestiae exercitationem ipsam.
Repudiandae cum molestias nihil voluptatem nostrum. Nulla quod quam dolores labore. Minus adipisci quo quibusdam rerum. Facilis ea quo asperiores possimus quo.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Quas iure esse totam minus. Eaque itaque adipisci temporibus commodi qui iste. Aut a nihil ut non in minima ex qui. Nisi sed rem modi voluptatem. Rerum in soluta soluta recusandae odit.
Nostrum harum modi occaecati soluta. Ad harum veritatis incidunt impedit. Magni omnis et consequatur aut ab nostrum sit.
Esse non sed ex dolorem adipisci eum et. Voluptatem tenetur a aut quia corrupti.