How are these banks?

bump

I know Thomas Weisel and Baird are decent boutiques, definitely not on the level of MoCo, Greenhill, Evercore, etc., never heard of the other two at all.

Baird is very solid. I have heard it's a great place to work (good culture). Not sure above internal movement, but they have a solid PE practice, as well. They favor midwest natives in hiring (I heard this on this forum, not sure how true it is, but I wouldn't be surprised).

Don't know much about Lincoln Int'l, but my intro to IB professor spoke highly of them.

Thomas Weisel is dece.

Never heard of GCA.

Intro to IB professor? You took an Intro to IB class? Is that typical?

http://astroturffarmer.blogspot.com

A number of state university finance curriculums offer it as an elective.

Lincoln International and Baird are viewed well for IB in the Midwest (specifically Chicago). I personally know people at Lincoln who love it there.

We have bought companies from Lincoln International as well as used them as an advisor. It's definitely a decent enough shop.

I agree that Baird is a good name as well. Thomas Weisel struggled a lot in recent years, even during the peak of the boom. No clue about GCA.

~~~~~~~~~~~ CompBanker

pretty sure GCA stems from Japan. out of curiosity, how did you hear about them?

gca savvian is the merger between the japanese firm gca and the tech boutique savvian. i'd assume he heard about them through the savvian part.

Savvian was the original company based in Chicago - they did a merger with the Japanese Party in 2007-2008.

They're doing very well, thank you. How are you?

Baird and Lincoln are the ones I've heard of the most. Good people at both places and a decent amount of deals.

Weisel's on its way down, Baird is poorly located (midwest coverage is almost all industrials)

Lincoln seems good from what I've heard.

GCA Savvian's advisory revenues were down 65% in 2009 in the US. (http://www.gcasavvian.com/en/ir/news). They were also badly hit in Japan where they historically were very strong.

I’d also be interested in any info on Baird.