Houston Banking
I’m currently a freshman at a school in Houston with a pretty established pipeline to IB inside Houston (Rice), and saw something today that gave me a bit of an existential crisis: BMO axing their Houston office.
More generally, it made me wonder if the overall sentiment is bearish on Houston IB and if perhaps it might be in my best interest to try and hustle for a NY office spot or look into commodities trading. Any insight would be appreciated!
As someone joining a top Houston bank next year, I would say yes. Try first to see if you can get a NY position. If you can't, then take Houston. I myself will try to lateral to NY when a good opportunity opens up. My view is that all the underperforming shops will downsize or shut shop (not in the next 2 years but definitely in the 10-12 years), and the handful of the top banks will capture the reduced earnings. A lot of these banks like DB and BMO were surviving on their balance sheet deals, not M&A. Now, there isn't as big of a need for those balance sheets anymore. I know banks have already resized their SA classes. So I think it might relatively get more difficult to get into Houston banks too (I know banks that used to take 8-10 people now taking half of that).
So, try to get to NY.
For people who are interning this upcoming summer at a houston bank, would it be wise to recruit full-time in NY/SF?
Yes.
Recruit for NYC and Houston as a backup if you need to.
Yeah, you don't want to be siloed into energy this early. Focus on targeting banks in NYC where your school has a good relationship and apply to Houston for the rest.
don't split your efforts. Focus all-out on one city. Splitting your efforts is a sure-fire way to screw up. Focus and concentrated efforts win the day
Unless you're passionate about energy or want to stay in TX long-term, then would look elsewhere.
Don't agree with that. I split my efforts between Houston and NY and landed with a top group.
Past performance is not indicative of future results
Agree -- banks can sniff out if you're recruiting for both. Plenty of people who want to stay here and work.
I would definitely try recruiting elsewhere and not put all eggs in houston O+G. At the very least there will be some downsizing, that much is clear.
Unless Houston groups edge their way into power and renewables, which i view as unlikely given the decade plus head start the power/utilities groups have in NY it’s a recipe for consistent existential crises. It’s dark days in oil and gas finance
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