Moelis LA, Lazard NY, or Greenhill NY?

moelis la and lazard ny are both cruel..especially lazard nyc..(not by much though, moelis la is pretty bad as well)

IMHO, Greenhill NY. Awesome advisory exposure, reasonably sized/small analyst classes, great sr. management exposure, strong deal flow, great exit opps.

Greenhill hands down unless there's a certain group at Lazard you really like

Deal experience: Lazard by a LONG shot, followed by Greenhill and Moelis Exit opps.: 1.a. Lazard, 1.b. Greenhill, 3. Moelis Hours: 1. Greenhill, 2.a. Moelis, 2.b. Lazard

I don't know how Moelis LA hours are, but I know for a fact that New York is the worst on the street, followed very closely by Lazard NY. Both are sweatshops, but with Lazard you do get a very significant degree of deal experience and the best of the exit opportunities of these three places. I vote Lazard, but I can see why one would be tempted (be it because of hours or pay) to say Greenhill instead. Moelis LA is better than a LOT of places - just not these two in my honest opinion.

Moelis LA. Broad product experience and deal flow. If you think hours are meaningfully better at any place or are doing banking for lifestyle, you're delusional and should apply to mgmt trainee program at enterprise rent a car instead. Greenhill ny is over rated - 15 yrs in business but yet now smaller than moelis in terms of revenue and deal flow. Lazard ny is group dependent, but largely inferior given experience is concentrated in one industry and one product. Post above with firm ratings is moronic - about as insightful as dr seuss book.

I interviewed with all 3 and had offers from 1/2 of these firms

Also, I think there's this myth that Lazard and Moelis people are cruel and evil, when in reality, if you've actually spoken with/interviewed with these firms, the people are actually really good guys. That's not to say however, that they aren't super intense and have extremely high demands of their junior people...

For what it's worth, no homo is not too far off with this breakdown, and my personal breakdown would look similar, with a few exceptions.

Feel free to PM me for details, but honestly you can't go wrong with any of those places.

Don't know about Lazard. From talking to friends that have worked there, Greenhill NY has traditionally had pretty good placement and pretty good culture and hours. People have placed well into PE funds and solid hedge funds.

Moelis LA is pretty intense as far as hours ago, but the culture is pretty good. Office is indicative of westcoast culture - people are casual in the office and often times you'll see polos and jeans. Work experience is very good - I know interns that were building full on LBOs during the summer. That being said, hours can get pretty brutal. Analysts do work on restructuring deals but the deals are primarily executed through the NY office. I can confirm that placement has been very good the past couple years with people going to megafunds in LA and SF.

Thank you for your input. This is my summary now: Moelis LA: great industry and product exposure (tech, media, gaming, lbo ... all that i like), best exit option in terms of megafunds, but brutal hours. Lazard NY: worst hour. pigeonholed in one industry group. but great exit option. especially good for bschool. the most prestigeous / well known among the three. Greenhill NY: great hour (by ib standard). broad exposure. good exit option. but they have less analysts and less hours which indicates that they have less deal flows.

Any corrections or additions? And I'm really curious what exact do people mean by good hours and bad hours. can people give some rough numbers for each one of the firms? I would consider the cut between good and bad to be 100 hours per week.

Can I also add MS GCM to the list too? I know it's totally different, but I'm looking into LevFin in GCM. I've always been intereted in the market so I don't mind blending some market component to my job.

Bad hours = consistently over 100, for weeks straight. I personally don't think there's a serious difference between 110, 120 and 130 honestly, you get kinda numb by then lol so it's more about frequency, IMO.

Also to clarify on the three firms, Lazard hours are not the worst on an absolute basis. Some groups work more than what they do at MoLA, some do less, it would depend on the group.

As for being pigeonholed at Lazard, I have heard that even their FIG analysts place into generalist PE funds, so I don't think that's an issue for a firm like Lazard.

One final point, I think any analyst will agree with me on this, but the more deal exp you get, the better your exit options and the stronger your experience is. I think this is the main downside of GHL, but if you are wiling to trade off for consistent 80 hour weeks, then that's a personal decision.

Mathematically, it sounds like a lot, but I personally think anything above 100 feels awful on the body. Also, if you're in the industry, you should know better than to normalize the incremental sleep over 7 days; it is never gonna come evenly haha.

I guess my point is, and feel free to disagree: I would rather work one 120 hour week and one 80 hour week than two 100 hour weeks.

are you an analyst right now? 120 hr week is just painful. Pulled a 110 hr week last week and it was one of the worst week in my life.

second the above post

dontmakemeshortyou fucking nailed it, case closed right there baby

On the contrary, I think this board constantly hates on Moelis. After all, when's the last time you heard anything positive about them? I had close friends work at the firm this summer (both LA and NY) and they seemed to be pretty happy with the experience. There are obviously pros and cons to working there but I think it gets trashed on here more than it should.

Everything seems about right for Greenhill - everything I've heard about the firm is great, and this is from people that actually work there, not undergrads on this board who follow the WSO crowd mentality. Likewise with Lazard - I know people there who don't 'summer' in the Hamptons and absolutely love the work they do there. The culture is not 'universally horrible' or a complete 'sweatshop' as some people on here would have you believe. They have industry groups and your experience will vary depending on the people you work with.

In the end, you have to do your own research outside of WSO - if you genuinely do have offers at these places, people from these firms are calling you everyday and you should take advantage of the situation and get some straight facts from them. Also, you're probably at a target school, talk to the kids that actually summered there before or currently work there. These should be the primary source of information, not a message board.

I second dontmakemeshortyou's post...Laz and GHL far far better than Moelis, on a number of criteria, with the exception of pure hours worked.

I think the reason that Moelis gets trashed is because they make out like they're hot shit when they clearly ain't. They came to present on campus recently for Associate hires and said that we're top of this and best at that...one of the things they clearly said was that MD's at all the top BB's are just waiting for Ken to call and when he does, they jump at the chance. Errrm...right.

A little bit of humility goes a long way.

LAZ/Greenhill > Moleis.