Hey guys, there was a similar post to this made in 2013, but I'm wondering how energy coverage has shifted over the past 4 years. Which BB's/EB's have the best exit opportunities? Which ones have the best culture? Which ones have the best compensation/work-life balance?
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In no particular order my understanding is EVR (places into to megafunds), Barclays (placed a few at NGP, Encap I believe), Jefferies (keep hearing really positive things about this group), GS are top. I know RBC closed a lot of deals as well. Citi places fairly well and was just on the EQT deal. Wells is growing.
As for Comp -- EB pay above street, and I believe all BB pay street As for Work Life -- They all work anywhere from 70-100 hours. Just don't expect much in terms for work life from any...
Need to include CS somewhere. Definitely a major player, arguably near the top.
Placement: Barclays, CS, EVR, GS, MS, TPH, Citi (burdened by larger class size)
Dealflow (and typically worst hours): Jefferies, TPH, EVR, Petrie, GS
Comp: Jefferies (insane comp this year), TPH, EVR, Petrie (all paid above BB)
Culture: Simmons, MS, JPM, TPH; though pretty arbitrary as it really just depends on personal fit with the group for most
Here comes the Monkey Shit.
1st its important to understand how diverse energy is, and how that effects capital needs.
The shops I would consider 1st tier are primarily E&P focused, and the guys who have leveraged restructuring practice in downturn did extremely well and are best positioned for future business : Jefferies, EVR LAZ (LAZ is where the MS will come from, but after $30 BB of BG divestment you can all eat shit - I don't care if they had to work on some airline deals 12 years ago.)
Jefferies has the best A&D practice on the street bar none. For those out of the loops those are the technical guys that deal will assets. Moreover, upstream asset M&A accounts for ~60% of global investment banking activity. In high commodity price environment even more (ie ~75% of all M&A transactions by value were in this space). They are limited by a number of factors including no balance sheet (they actually have a small one but nowhere near a BB platform).
TPH has fallen far, unfortunately. They preformed poorly during the downturn. (Here is where I get more Monkey Shit). Don't get me wrong, the senior management at TPH are among the smartest in the industry, they are not going anywhere. They just didn't get a ton of restructuring work that I know they were hoping for.
I would say the same thing for CS, but I am less confident on that claim. Only a few years ago they were without a doubt top 3 O&G banks. I don't think they are doing poorly, but I also don't think they could make that claim, today.
Simmons got acquired, nothing spectacular happening there yet, but they are small and OFS focused.
Moelis has good A&D team, and did good restructuring work out. I'd look out for them.
Houlihan Lokey is a major sleeper. Restructuring practice crushed it across the energy platform. Relatively new A&D team, top of the industry guys who have gotten a few impressive deals done during the downturn. Well positioned - would keep an eye on them too. OFS team has done some cool sh*t in the MM as well, but no BH/GE.
Most of the BB's compete over capital-intensive-advisory-light midstream I won't call this Second tier, because it's not. But, it wouldn't be fair to try and compare the success of Jefferies to the success of Citi.
That said - the banks that I see compete most effectively in this midstream space, which also have a respectable - crushing it advisory practice are Citi, BAML, JPM, MS.
Note that GS is left off. They have a good, relatively balanced practice across multiple sectors, and at the end of the day they are still GS. However, They do not have the presence in O&G that lives up to the hype. OFS is strongest sector, and there are only a handful of companies of that type of the size they deal with.
Exit ops are going to be basically the same at any of these (ie you can easily go wherever you want afterwards, except maybe TPH, Simmons, HL, and you could still get wherever you want to go with a little effort)
EBs pay the best, work the hardest. The BB midstream seem to have good worklife balance and great pay (relative to their NY counterparts).
Anything downstream from here will (probably) be better hours, worse pay - although the pay will probably not fluctuate much for top bucket.
Always surprising how wrong these usually are… having worked at a few banks in Houston and arguably now at a top shop will give my 2 cents. Believe last last the top 4 revenue wise were JPM, JEF, RBC, and CITI . JPM still does a ton of lending and gets deal flow through aggressive behavior related to that. Culture is toxic and with O&G companies spitting of tons of FCF think their influence on getting deals starts to dwindle. RBC and Wells are the 2 other major lenders (Wells largely irrelevant). RBC through Richardson Barr has a pretty good A&D group and then through an aggressive setup in lending has done fairly well over last few years. I dont have much bad to say about them aside from being a Canadian bank and that you’ll never get an outsized bonus. CITI is about to drop as they work through their existing backlog due to departures to GUGG and Trauber retiring. JEF is still top shop for upstream and midstream sell-sides and has a very healthy backlog of $1 Bn+ deals. Other banks worth mentioning are Simmons still crushes OFS is that’s you’re interest, TPH and Evercore are still good but have dropped over the last few years with key top guys retiring. GS whale hunts large M&A / financing deals. Barclays hits a few deals but otherwise been on steady decline. BAML, MS, CS are largely irrelevant. On boutique side MOL, HL, LAZ, PJT, Stifel, Intrepid,etc. are largely irrelevant. If I am missing some names most likely irrelevant as well.