While BB and elite boutique banks dominate a lot of the conversation on WSO, there is usually a good number of smaller/lesser known banks in any major city. You can usually find a range of middle market, small boutiques (single digit headcount), niche specific boutiques (healthcare, technology, etc), and regional banks.
Some of these are pretty legit players in their space (usually strong MM banks), others are hard to discern as they are pretty small banks with websites from the 90s.
Assuming the long term goal of PE/HF/VC/MBA business schools">M7, how small/regional would you go to break into investment banking?
What about lateral moves, how small would you go for higher title/comp/responsibility?
For a SA position, I would go pretty small. Having tangible experience that I can talk about in a FT interview is pretty important to me.
Not sure how small I would go for FT. At a certain point I think going the F500 route and then M7 to break into banking may be more feasible and better in the long run.
Definitely agree for SA, any experience will show interest and can help secure other internships and FT offers.
Primarily interested in hearing people's thoughts on FT jobs at these smaller banks, though.
I work for a small boutique (~20) bankers. Our analysts get a good experience, but it is vastly different than what you get at a BB. They don't have the same exit ops as kids at well known shops, but I think most of the analysts have left to solid positions. Recently we've had people leave to BB banks, start-ups, Fortune 500 corp dev, one to mid-market PE, one to a top 5 MBA.
When considering small firms, look at the backgrounds of the mid-level and senior employees. Have they worked for notable firms in major markets? Do they have MBAs from top programs? Where did their analysts go to school and intern prior to joining the firm? That will give you a sense of the caliber of the people.
How many deals has the firm closed in the past year or two? I would say that ~1 closed transaction/year/banker is a decent threshold (given that deal teams are typically 3-4 people). Look at the companies that they are working with. Are the buyers for M&A large cap companies? Can you find any information about the actual deals (were they noteworthy within the relevant industry blogs or papers)? Who are the PE funds investing in the sponsors deals? These types of questions should give you an idea of whether or not a boutique bank is legit or not.
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