Opinion on Greentech Capital Advisors after recent merger with Nomura

Hi Monkeys,

Nomura recently acquired Greentech Capital Advisors and will rename the firm Nomura Greentech.

Was wondering if you guys had insights on how this will affect the dynamics at Greentech in the future in terms of exit opps, office locations, employee culture,etc..

Any info would be appreciated!

 
 

I had one of my worst Superday experiences there. Completely unorganized (forgot to pay for hotel, took 8 months to reimburse for expenses) and they also started the slate of interviews late (was waiting in the office for >1hr). This was also coming off of my second round interview where the interviewer told me directly he didn’t like my answers to the behavioral questions and cut the interview short (got the Superday invite a week later). Would not recommend this firm at all, maybe Nomura will help make it a bit more professional, but who knows

 

Culture is not the best either btw at least in the NY office. One of my friends told me everyone is actively meeting recruiters at Blue Bottle across the street to try to lateral. MDs keeep throwing pitches at people that they know have a very low chance of succeeding. That too, they throw them the day before the date.

Will update my computer soon and leave Incognito so I will disappear forever. How did I achieve Neanderthal by trolling? Some people are after me so need to close account for safety.
 

former/current GT banker here. Have definitely seen kids waiting for an absurd amount of time before interviews (bankers too staffed to step away for 30 mins obviously not a good look for the firm). Pretty wild if someone actually said your answers weren't good in an interview... can't believe that one, but who knows. Only thing I'd say is read the Glassdoor reviews. pretty much all recent stuff is true over there. huge pros and cons to coming here. highs are high, lows are low. insane exit ops.

 

Any chance you could lend your insight into the exit ops you mentioned? I would assume this would be thought of as valuable industry specific experience, but would appreciate any info on potential exits

 

Had a first round there and absolutely hated it. The guy was a complete ass and they seemed like a pretty unimpressive bank. I can't imagine this helped either party much.

 

Does anyone know the email address to Nomura Greentech employees?

 

I'd have to agree with most of the opinions about how unprofessional Greentech really is. I personally recruited there and during the phone interviews the bankers seemed to be really nice and welcoming but during the superday they were very hostile, overworked, and overall really didn't persuade me that it was a firm I wanted to work for. Knew another person who was scheduled to fly in and have a superday there but the week prior to his superday, they abruptly told him/her that they had moved on and chosen someone and didn't book his/her flight/hotel for the superday. He had gone through 2-3 rounds of phone interviews and they didn't even give him/her the chance to compete at the same time as the other candidates. Seemed to leave a very bad impression on me and our friends and his/her experience is similar to other stories on WSO. Would try to avoid the Greentech as there are bulge brackets and MMs with much better deal flow/exits/culture/prestige/professionalism. Just read the glassdoor reviews and you'll see how toxic the culture is.

 

Second this, and it sucks bc I would love to work at a firm that only focuses on sustainability

Analysts at the firm have straight up told me someone networking that a certain senior banker is bad

Can agree on networking calls that they don't care to sell the firm even to strong candidates --- other banks' analysts / people will make an effort to offer to connect you to others, talk to HR to accelerate processes, etc.

The fact that so many summer interns either don't accept their return offer or aren't given them says a lot

 

Yeah I mean during the superday, I remember sitting down and meeting one of the associates, and we were speaking about how nice the city (SF) was to live and work in and he muttered and chuckled, "If you ever get to go outside." Mind you, I had just met this guy maybe 30 seconds ago. When I had met the junior banker that I networked with (had two informational calls with him prior to the superday) in an interview, he straight up acted like he never talked to me in his life. In all the interviews, the bankers never seemed to smile, acted arrogant, and the partners of the firm seemed like you were wasting their time by showing up to the superday THEY invited you to. Very odd/regrettable experience.

 

Can anyone comment on the level of autonomy that the group has within Nomura? I'm assuming it's treated very differently from a traditional coverage group within Nomura. Also, any current/former GT bankers able to comment on the acquisition now that things have most likely settled? Will the firm be able to attract the same level of talent now that it is Nomura? 

 

Hours are bad... Analysts typically log off ~3-4 AM. Logging off at midnight is considered a slow day. The firm had a bad year in terms of revenue. Turnover this year is also high despite imposing 100% bonus clawback to the VPs/Associates. 15 or so VPs/Associates have left the firm in the past 2 months. Some of them have good exits and others are just pissed about the bonus clawback. Associates who remained at the firm are new and have only been with the firm for less than 1 year.

 

To tack onto this, was talking to an MD in the renewables space and he said the Nomura acquisition absolutely destroyed Greentech, and nobody wanted to stay after that.

 

I think over the long haul these mergers never work out. Even the ones you mentioned that are the most successful mergers have led to much worse boutiques a few years down the road. TPH and Jefferies HOU are a shell of what they were a few years ago. In regards to TPH, the merger was okay at first but their pay has begun to lag well behind other top Houston shops. Whereas at Jefferies, they were fortunate at first to be able to keep their bonus pool separate from the rest of the bank but as the pay got lower during the slow A&D times, everyone began to jump ship and the historically bad culture got even worse. Overall, these mergers never seem to work out well. The boutique is almost always better than the big bank that acquires them. 

 

Exits started really only picking up 2019+ with GS Special Sits and WP being the two premier exits that year followed up by a few to DE Shaw, Carlyle, Ares, MIRA, GIP, Google to name a bunch (all NY office). Keep in mind classes are pretty small @ incoming analyst and associate classes of no more than 6 (usually 4-5) and 2 respectively per year

 
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For context, I completed one year at GT and 1 year at NGT. Clearly, the last year was different from the first 9 months because of COVID, going remote, and no one closing deals for half of 2020. Going remote took place right around the merger.

If you can sidestep the important work of figuring out what bank is more prestigious (and how the combination of banks with different prestige levels affect the overall prestige level of the combined bank) than I can tell you without a doubt that NGT is still the best sell side advisor in the renewable energy space. I'm biased but it's true.

A lot of established buy side firms are creating renewable energy groups and NGT is naturally a top place for them to recruit from. GT/NGT alumns have recently exited to GS, Carlyle, Ares, Warburg, Quantum, Global Infrastructure Partners, DE Shaw, etc. on the financial side and Google, stem, sunrun, Tesla, etc. on the corp dev side. Do your own Linkedin DD to confirm.

If anything exit opps have improved (but the job market is hot right now so that helps). This is all in regards to renewable energy. If you want a generalist program then than there are obviously better banks.

P.S. You're still going to get worked just as hard post-merger

 

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