I was wondering what the hours and salary+bonus for 1st year analysts was at banks like:
Houlihan Lokey- Chicago/Minneapolis
Piper Jaffray - Minneapolis
Lazard MM- Minneapolis
RW Baird- Milwaukee/chicago
BMO Cap Market- Chicago
EDIT: I'm not looking for hours/pay for specific banks- just a general idea of decent MM banks in midwest.
Thanks!
If you work at any of those places, please PM me - I would love to get more information about them.
You might have to individually search for those names if you want to get info. Most people only like to provide general information so you could be hard pressed to find a member that will tell you where they work and how much they made...especially if they are at a regional office.
Regards
Yeah, I didn't want to know information about specific firms... Just solid midwest MM banks like those in general...I found that hours, esp in Minneapolis are less than NYC...but would like to get an estimate or general idea
I talked to some analysts at the Minneapolis office of Harris Williams about a year ago. I was told they worked a lot of hours in the prior several months and you could tell they were dragging ass, lol. I don't know what that translates to in 'hours per week' but rest assured you will be tired and irritable as an analyst at just about any bank. How tired? That will depend on your immediate boss and on deal flow...which will vary from bank to bank, from one coverage/industry group to another and even based on the time of year, economic climate, etc.
I would think that regional offices tend to work slightly fewer hours than NYC BBs, but chances are they are going to be over 70 on a regular basis so you might as well prepare for the worst. In some ways working IB hours is like getting kicked in the balls...if you have a choice between 15 kicks and 20 kicks everyone is going to choose 15, but at some point those last 5 aren't going to matter because your nuts are probably swollen and numb. Yeah, might be a bad analogy. Point is, I don't know anyone in IB, at any place, that doesn't put in long days very frequently because it's a service position. You are there to work hard for your superiors who are working hard for their clients and when there aren't any clients, then you are working hard for your superiors who are working hard to find clients.
If I had to put a number on it, 70-80 on average, getting to 90-100 at peak, as opposed to 80-90 on average and 100-110 at peak for the NYC-esque shops. Remember that some office time is spent doing nothing except waiting around in the office for your next assignment but the bottom line is it will be a ton of hours and a ton of work.
These aren't confirmed numbers either, so to speak. These are merely here to illustrate that there isn't much difference between 105 degrees and 115 degrees...both are fucking stupid hot. LOL.
As far as comp, they will be similar to street, possibly a bit lower. That means salary of 60-70 and bonus just slightly off, if not even with, street bonuses...which vary from year to year, etc.
Regards
And this is a bit ironic as well but, if you haven't done so, scroll up to your original post and click on the names of each firm. That should take you to the individual company research page, which will have a salary tab and will give you a general idea of what to expect. This is free once you provide a contribution. I did mine a while ago, so I'm not entirely sure what qualifies as a contribution at this point, but it should be very simple.
Regards
Thanks. +1.
Regards
Thank you cphbravo for the info. I agree that any analyst position sounds bad, but working 70~80 hours/week average doesn't sound that bad compared to 100+.
Cphbravo, do you know anything about exit ops from MM IBD in midwest?
Not specifically for the Midwest, but most analysts coming out of MM IBD are going to be qualified for corporate development positions and finance roles at F500 companies and MM PE positions.
What MM PE shops and where they are located will all be a factor of timing, the market, your network and luck. There are lots of MM PE shops all around the country so your options are fairly robust as far as potential places you could work, but that doesn't mean they will be hiring and that doesn't mean they will want to hire you.
People tend to stay in the regions they are in, when they can find employment there (assuming offers or opportunities elsewhere were fairly similar in nature). I don't know many MM PE firms in the Midwest off hand, but there is most certainly a thread here on WSO that will likely list them...you will just have to try and search to find it. The other thing you could try to do is post a request in the IB form for someone to generate a CapIQ list for MM PE firms in Chicago. Sometimes people will help you out, sometimes they won't.
There is a thread on here that lists banks for pretty much every major city, but I don't recall if they have PE shops in there or not. This all assumes you need specific firms, but I would say that is a waste of time.
Coming out of a MM IBD role, you will be using your network, headhunters and potentially your boss's network to source PE openings...and again, these are so random there is no telling where the openings could be.
Also, b-school is sometimes an option coming out of IB, but generally you want to find a buyside gig first, unless you know what you want to do and that requires the MBA.
As far as the hours, you can try to find a firm with a better culture, but it's not as though anyone is going to check a time card and tell you to get out of the office because you are close to 80 hours that week. They will expect you to work as late as necessary to complete the tasks, sometimes that means all night. And the difference between the hours you will work at a good MM shop isn't likely to be different from BBs by 20 hours per week, maybe more like 10 hours per week and maybe, sometimes, even more.
The point there is, go to the best bank you can and don't worry about the hours. I know a lot of people talk about 100+ hours week, but I think that is fairly uncommon outside of working on a live deal, so even if it was to happen, you are talking for relatively short duration. Very few people I know in banking, and I could be wrong, average 100+ hours a week on an on going basis.
Regards
During training, we were told to expect 80 hours a week, with occasional spikes when things get hectic. That's mostly been true, except that "occasional" really meant "often", as dealflow is strong at my bank right now, and the new analyst class hasn't come in yet (more work over fewer bodies, with interns filling some of the gap).
Also, salary and bonus are similar to street for the banks you listed, but may be more variable (either upward or downward) because they're much less tied to the economy than BB banks for a variety of reasons. For example, HLHZ is a restructuring giant, so when times are bad, you're comp could be much better than at a BB firm. BMO has also traditionally paid better than street, although this year numbers were apparently not quite so good.
Thanks CHItizen, does it ever get lower than 80hrs/week? On the other side, have you worked 100hr+ /weeks?
That being said, sub-80 hour weeks happen occasionally, generally when you're a second year who has something else lined up (i.e. PE offer), but in general, I wouldn't count on it; it seems like a lot now, but most people are awake from 9 AM - Midnightish anyway. The biggest difference I've found is that it's just so much harder to run personal errands, like haircuts, doctor's appointments, etc.
Very helpful posts! Thanks
Also, what do most analysts do at your bank after 2 -year stint? Is it tough to get decent MM PE offers/ F500 corp dev positions from MM IB?
Middle Market IB hours (Originally Posted: 04/24/2011)
How are the hours with MM banks (non NYC) but like in LA, SF, Chicago, Boston, Houston?
Firms like Jefferies, William Blair, Stifel, Harris Williams?
Anyone have experience with hours/lifestyle?
The majority of analysts at my office had things lined up after their second year. Probably 80-90% left, with a couple staying on for a third year. Most went to buyside shops, ranging from MM PE firms to less standard paths like fund of funds firms or whatever.
Where you end up can largely hinge on where you work, what deals you work on, but you do hold some control over your destiny as well. To take two examples from the set of MM banks up top again, someone from restructuring in HLHZ would likely land a few interviews from credit or distressed debt based hedge funds, but I doubt you'd get many of those from BMO (not a knock against BMO, they just don't do restructuring).
bump
Use the search function.
Hours are still high but slightly less than NY.
What about the MM hours in NYC if it's a satellite office?
All finance jobs have hours between 70-100 hours a week with an average around 80 hours a week for banking.
I have a friend going FT to a MM in Chicago. He was told about 80 on a regular week. No real difterence from the BBs besides the clients being smaller.
Hours at MM Regional? (Originally Posted: 11/04/2010)
I am evaluating a couple of IB opportunities with regional firms, SunTrust RH being one. Anyone know what average hours are for MM firms located outside of NYC versus BB? This would be in M&A or Fixed Income. I know the pay is less but is it offset by improved work/life?
yes...def a better lifestyle
I am sure this is discussed a million times. It is specific to your particular opportunity. Each group in whatever city you are looking in will be different. Ask the other analysts or associates for an honest answer if you can. Try get a a real sense for hours in a given week, meaning done let them BS you.
Yea - its hard to get a straight answer on hours worked from these guys, especially when they are trying to sell you on the company. And you can't ask in interview setting since they will think you can't handle the workload.
I know someone at STRH in M&A who has been getting crushed.
Don't listen to these guys, MM firms like SunTrust, HW, Baird, Blair, Jefferies, etc will crush you just as hard as the BB NYC firms, and often the pay isn't that much less. Sure you may get an extra weekend or two off, but 90 hour weeks can still be the norm. You (usually more than) make up the difference in pay with a lower cost of living in Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, or where ever.
Thanks. Not much research on WSO
Let me echo CaptK here. Anyone who tells you that hours will be better in regional offices is one of two things: 1) completely ignorant of what goes on in an investment bank day to day and week to week, 2) delusional about how things work outside of the wonderful NYC.
I'll say this slow and clear so you'll not only be sure to understand, but so this will pop up in searches as well. Investment bankers' hours are called investment bankers' hours because those are the hours worked by investment bankers. Notice how they're not called New York investment bankers' hours, but just plain old investment bankers' hours. Why is that? Because if you are hired by an investment bank anywhere, and therefore an investment banker, then you can expect to work those hours.
If you are looking for the one bank that lets you go home early, stop looking and apply to law school right now.
jhoratio is right. I worked at a regional MM and was absolutely destroyed until the recession hit. One of my current co-workers worked at a BB in NYC and said that he only pulled one all nighter throughout his two years (recession + easy group). It is entirely situational. Also, it is even possible that the guy sitting in the cube next to you gets an entirely different experience based on the deals he/she is staffed on.
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