Good afternoon All,
Looking for some advice on which banks have strong deal flow, good culture, a big presence out in Denver. Also interested in hearing how exit ops work (Ive been told you have a far better chance to transition to spots out west, and will have a much harder time moving to say NYC or Chicago). Candidly, I am worried about being stuck working in any city. Really welcoming all feedback and anyone's two cents on the banking scene out there. Do most BB's and EB's have offices out there? Are they more for just bringing in new clients? Do they operate in nearby states or do these firms typically focus on companies in the Colorado area?
As per usual, thank you in advance for any insight!
bump
Petrie and TPH both have offices in Denver, if energy is your thing.
Thanks for your feedback! Do you know more about their operations? Is denver a key market for either firm?
TPH's Denver office is relatively new and is only a fraction of the size of their main Houston office. I'm not nearly as familiar with Petrie, but my understanding is that their Denver office is their HQ and is either bigger/on-par with their Houston office.
bump
Petrie is based in Denver, but it's small. Denver doesn't have a major investment banking presence. There are a few small boutiques and a couple of regional offices, which you can find by searching Denver on this forum. No BB has a major presence for IB in Denver.
Thank you for this. Spoke to a few PE guys who told me the IBD presence was decent, but they admitted they weren't too confident.
Much better PE city than banking city.
Group that sold to KPMG was solid (Charles River or something), legacy Green Manning boutiques are okay, but neither is on part with good MM shops. Headwaters is mediocre sans a vertical or two.
Doesn't DA Davidson have a presence there?
Absolutely, I am actually going to send out some cold emails. My understanding is they have offices all across the US which would help ease my concern to some extent.
Yah davidson has S&T desks in Denver. One of their desks is on some syndicate deals my group does. But for the most part they do pretty small stuff. Still a good start if you get an offer though in my opinion.
Good addition. Mostly construction, infrastructure and some energy in that office IIRC.
Headwaters MB and Slate partners are in Denver. If CF is a possibility the big 4 have a large presence in Denver too
Thanks for mentioning slate, dont know too much about them. Im considering B4 valuation positions, but not the route I was hoping to go down. I would rather work at a tiny boutique, but again I am just trying to do what is best for my career (and end up in an ideal location, if possible).
Are you looking for FT or SA
SA, should have specified. My bad
It's a small presence in Denver. There's a few small shops that mostly recruit out of DU (like SDR Ventures), some energy ones (DA Davidson and Headwaters post a lot for jobs), and a few small MM offices out there.
Overall there's not much IB, but a lot of VC (heavily focused in Boulder), a decent amount of PE, and a crap ton of Wealth Management which I imagine has something to do with the relatively large number of wealthy retirees in Colorado.
Thank you for this. I know the PE presence is strong. The Managing Partners of my fund told me that they almost set up shop out in CO, apparently the whole state is booming
There's not really much VC in Colorado. There are really only 4 active funds at the moment - Foundry Group, Access Ventures, Tech Stars and the Colorado Impact Fund. A lot of the older funds like Centennial, Meritage and Boulder Ventures are no longer active.
First off, Janus Capital is HQ'd in Denver. KeyBanc capital markets has a group, and they also run their Equipment Finance business out in a suburb of Denver. Piper Jaffray and Stifel do public finance out of Denver, Ziegler, Auctus, RBC
Thank you so much for this, this is almost all new information for me
No problem man, btw forgot about BMO
Janus Capital is (was) an Asset Management firm.
Ur right...Srry about that guys, thought they also had an ibank
Two words, Lehman Brothers!!
Lurker that wanted to chime in since I grew up native to to the area and had a similar dilemma when evaluating what I wanted to do out of school (though with regards to a different city). Still have a lot of buddies working in Denver and so I am happy to share what insight I have. Agree with previous posters and general sentiment regarding Denver being a place that is much more oriented towards PE/AM vs. traditional IBD.
I think most of the posts in this thread do a good job of covering which firms have a presence in Denver. Headwaters/DA Davidson/KPMG/various MM IB offices will probably be a decent experience, especially if you are looking to stay around in Denver for FT. Same goes for any ER teams that might still have a presence in the area (Wells, one or two others that are slipping my mind). The work/life balance at most of these firms seems relatively reasonable and conducive to a long-term career without driving yourself nuts in 2 years. That being said, they probably won't get you very far if your goal is to eventually land a "big-time" PE job, especially in cities such as NYC, LA, SF, etc. You may even find it difficult to get looks at any of the more well-known funds in the Denver (KRG, KSL, Exellere, PR) unless you have a standout UG resume/background + very impressive work experience. The firms I just mentioned mainly focus their recruiting efforts on candidates based out of NYC/LA/HOU/Chicago. That being said, with some effort put in to networking and assuming you are prepared for your interviews, I don't think it's unreasonable at all to feel comfortable that you could land a decent PE, post-banking track Asset Management, or MM Associate IBD job in a different city. I'm familiar with two guys who used to work at St. Charles (before they were acquired by KPMG) who left Denver for a very respectable buy-side gigs.
Other than that, if you want full optionality to be able to move to a different locale down the road and energy is your thing, I would consider the following:
TPH does have an office in the city and are traditionally recognized as one of the top firms within the Energy space. Working in TPH's Houston office would likely be conducive to top exit opportunities within oil & gas at the very least. I don't know much about their operations in Denver besides the fact that its still a relatively small office and I am unsure of there being a substantive number of traditional analyst (or SA) positions available there, if at all. That being said, if they or any other firm with a multi-city presence does happen to be hiring, there would likely always be a possibility that you could move from within the firm to a different city following a few years of good service.
Petrie Partners is a small firm in terms of headcount but is among the top groups in oil & gas IB and tends to compete with the Houston BBs and EBs (such as TPH) for business. It might make more sense for you, relative to TPH, considering they are headquartered in Denver. The firm is headed by ex. Petrie Parkman and Merrill Lynch/BAML alumns. Exit opportunities are strong, especially to Houston or NYC (energy-related), if you can handle the hours (seems absolutely brutal and on par with NYC sweatshops from what I've heard).
As an aside - Green Manning & Bunch was a well respected firm but they are no-longer around. Not sure what happened to the guys that were running the firm.
I would give multiple SBs if I could. Thank you so much, you've given me a great deal to consider.
Does anyone else have any information on Petrie's Denver office? Looking to learn more about shops that specialize in O&G.
Some of the GMB guys left a few years before it closed and started a respectable IB shop called Slate Partners in Denver
Awesome,I really appreciate this. Have some knowledge/experience in building materials/products. +1 SB Sir
Would love to hear some feedback on Headwaters, DA Davidson's Denver office, Petrie, and FMI too. Any thoughts are much appreciated
Blair just added a Denver office for IB
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