Choosing from: PWP, DB, and Rothschild
I am from a semi-target trying and was lucky enough to get 3 SA offers, all NYC
Which would you pick in terms of deal experience, prestige, exit opps?
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Do you know which group at DB and Roths (M&A, RX)?
Do you want international opportunities?
Do you want buyside ops (knock against PWP)?
Do you want to be in finance or look at other areas (F500 etc)?
So many questions, not always cut and dry.
No group placement yet (I am aiming for restructuring at Rothschild if possible, and not sure about DB I heard Lev Fin is solid) , not really interested in international opportunities, would like to stay in finance and go to he buyside. Thanks Gekko2
You realize that PWP is not going to let you exit into PE right? They expect a long term commitment. They are arguably the most prestigious of the three and you will get great deal experience, but they will fend off headhunters so that analysts do not have access to exit opps
It's known that PWP wants people to stay for the long haul and actually shun out headhunters.
So in terms of exit ops I would take Rothschild (DB is a BB, but unless you get LevFin it's tough.)
I personally would take Rothschild. Some might say take PWP and then parlay it into another firm for FT, but FT is such a crapshoot.
Forgot to mention that culture is also very important. Don't discount it at all.
Thanks Gekko
I agree, definitely Rothschild in terms of exit opps, then PWP.
Would really appreciate more comments. Will compensation (end of year bonus) be roughly the same across the board?
Great offers. Definitely Rothschild for exit ops, very strong brand (spoken to some people). PWP is also very good.
All 3 are great firms, congrats on the offers.
PE Exits: I would actually say DB on this one, if you can get into LevFin, Sponsors or Industrials, you shouldn't have a hard time getting into PE (probably not megafund though although they do send 1-2 every year). Neither PWP nor Rothschild has outstanding placement when it comes to the top PE shops but I'm sure that both firms will get you into PE if that's ultimately what you want. One of the above posters said that PWP is really into keeping people. Although this is true, they are also very much about taking care of their analysts. They send an obscene percentage of their analysts to HBS (Pete is on the board and Joe personally writes recs), so you may want to consider this as well when thinking about exits.
Prestige: Since I don't want to start another ranking flame war, I will put it this way: PWP is by far the most selective, DB is probably the least selective. This is NOT to say that PWP is necessarily > DB, but rather that it is just much harder to get into PWP (they had 3 summers last year and their analyst class will be 6 I think). I think PWP is generally looking for the same people as GS/MS which means that A) most of the offers they give out aren't accepted, and B) most people who are there are very impressive. Rothschild is somewhere in between, but in NY they are not regarded as highly as they are in Europe. However, obviously, their RX practice is much better than their M&A practice.
Culture: Both PWP and Rothschild have tight knit cultures (PWP much more so). At PWP the culture is definitely much more familial, whereas at Rothschild, the impression I got was that it was somewhat guy-ish/fratty. At DB it will depend from group to group and from team to team. DB hired a lot of teams from ML and LB during the crisis so a lot of groups don't even have standardized formats (some use word, others use ppt). For the above mentioned groups however (LF, FSG, INDU), they are all very laid-back cultures.
Hope this is helpful
Rothschild for breadth of exit opps, DB if you can get LevFin, and Perella if you don't want buy-side. You do though, so probably Rothschild.
Appreciate all the comments so far guys. Thank you
Hands down Rothschild for many exit opps, great culture, and experience. Also you should definitely consider PWP, overall a great firm. Congrats
I would also take Rothschild for the aforementioned reasons. Unless if its lev fin for DB (which is very competitive, so you can't bank on that), a top boutique like Rothschild will give you better exit ops after your analyst years. It will overall just be a better experience and you'll likely have more exposure.
I almost got dinged when I referred to Rothschild as a boutique during my interview. The Director was like wtf, we are a 200 year old banking group, do not ever refer to us as a boutique!
Thank you everyone so far for your input. I definitely really liked the culture and the people I met at Rothschild the best of the three. Does anyone have any info on end of year bonus differences across these three? Would they be very significant? Thanks
Did you notice how the Directors/MDs have been at Rothschild for 10-15 years! I met a lot of people who started their careers at Rothschild and heve been there ever since. I guess that says something about the culture.
Yes I totally saw that and a lot of the more junior people I talked to mentioned how its more of an "apprenticeship" culture where they really want you to succeed and be there for the long term. I think that's a big plus. Thanks for the tip on not calling it a boutique going forward.
Force DB to give you Levfin black in write writing in your contract and do the same for Rothschild Restructuring. I would take DB levfin. DB is very strong in debt. All MDs there end up in places such as GS/ML/JPM/UBS/CS it is the ideal spot to be.
Can I get a silver banana for suggesting Rothschild first? It's only fair.....hahah
SURE!
Everyone is talking about the great exit opportunites that Rothschild can give you. What are you guys talking about exactly?
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