Pretty good shop, historically been middle of the pack but have done very well this past year and really since Jonathan Cox came over. Tough culture with a ton of junior turnover (that’s why they’re hiring for analysts and associates). Obviously good brand name and a good opportunity if you are cool with O&G but get ready to work. 
 

Exit opps on par with most other BBs just know that if you’re coming in as an associate you’ll be further limited vs. analysts and the traditional portco opps in O&G don’t really exist anymore. 

 

Based on what I know of JPM Houston and what I'm reading here, I can summarize JPM Houston with this:

You should be wary to join a club that is willing to have you.

 

They went from a decent shop (below CS, Citi, Barcap among bulges) with surprisingly good hours and a great culture to a shop with much better dealflow but miserable culture, terrible hours, high turnover. Inflection point was when they changed up leadership in mid 2018. 

Their M&A dealflow has been solid and they're pretty dominant on HY left-leads. 

 

^Saw on another recent thread that there were really bad bonus numbers this past year (was there really a 12k YE bonus lol?). Culture seemed okay from coffee chat / when networking. I know of the 5 Analysts in the 2020 class, 2 are left. Lots of attribution during WFH as mentioned above.

 
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Buddy of mine worked at JPM Hou, said the culture is toxic, favoritism is rampant (5x-8x difference in bonus between top / bottom bucket??). Sounds like they close deals, but if they don’t like you they’ll screw you on comp. Wouldn’t go anywhere near that office from what I’ve heard - plenty of better shops in Houston.

 

Lol I've literally heard so many bitter stories from people all over Houston that've left the past couple years like people constantly brown-nosing seniors, Mid-levels (Associates / VP / Directors) are incompetent, low pay considering the terrible hours   

 

not related to jpm houston specifically, but it seems like favoritism is a common thing in banking from my experience - really liking one employee to the point of showing resentment to another employee who is doing perfectly fine but is not as hardo as favorite employee 

 

Can confirm all this from first hand experience. Culture was ok in the past but the leadership shake up in 2018 was a turning point. Jonathan Cox is especially terrible to work for (commonly saw him make last minute contradictory changes and ream people out for it, despite the presented product being a result of his earlier comments), universally disliked amongst the A&A classes and has created a culture of favouritism. Deal flow has had an uptick recently but this isn’t unique to JPM.

Avoid if possible, there are stronger banks with a less toxic culture. 

 

Also interested. Which of the BBs have the best culture/comp?

 

BB wise heard Citi is kinda sweaty but has a good culture albeit kinda fratty. Also one of Citi’s strongest groups.

 

All of these firms are from anecdotal experience of friends/former classmates so they’re experience may be different from the norm. With that being said, firms with good cultures on the BB side of things - CS, Barc, maybe BAML (have heard mixed reviews). Whereas in regards to boutiques, TPH (FaceTime culture though), Intrepid (fratty), and Gugg (not much dealflow) have good cultures but come with their flaws. 

 

It’s been a number of years since I was plugged into the Houston banking scene but I still know a few people. JPM had a really strong M&A year but it was because their corp bank basically told E&Ps that they’d be less punitive on their lending capacity in exchange for their next real fee. That’s how the game is played but it rubbed some folks the wrong way, including some of the E&Ps. I’d guess that they’re going to have a very quiet next year plus since most operators are paying down debt and/or have refi’d near-term maturities. There’s still some consolidation targets out there but this isn’t really the time for M&A.

 

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