Piper Jaffray vs BMO Capital Markets IB SA

Hi all,

I was faced with deciding between these two firms earlier this fall for a SA stint. I was not a member of this forum at the time, and although I am happy with my decision, I have always been curious what others may have done.

BMO's was for their Chicago office and Piper's was for their Minneapolis HQ; neither was group specific.

Short term goal is to get a return offer and long term goal is to get into MM PE after banking (typical). So given the same circumstances, which firm would you choose and why?

Any opinions welcomed and appreciated.

8 Comments
 
Best Response

PJC for the better M&A deal experience and because I've heard there are some pretty good MM PE opportunities in Minneapolis but then once you are pretty sure that you will be receiving a return offer, try to do some FT recruiting to lateral to a "better" bank. Not to say that PJC or BMO are bad opportunities for analyst positions, but if you got a Goldman TMT FT analyst offer, we all know what you'd do.

 
"Bullet-Tooth Tony" Piper has been doing well the past few years. If you get Medtech or HC, those will give you great experience. Industrials has been solid as well.

Agreed. Their other IB groups (Consumer, CleanTech/Ag., Tech, Private Placements) are pretty small and do not yet have a great reputation. That being said the firm has grown a lot since 08' after acquiring about 4-5 boutiques to help fill out Piper's gaps in coverage.

If you get to pick group preferences I would do #1 Medtech #2 Industrials 3# Med IT. I'm pretty sure you can see the types of deals that each group does on their website. Medtech gets the best M&A deals of any group but also does a good amount of IPOs and debt/equity raises. Pretty sure Industrials is almost exclusively M&A.

 

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