Hey guys,
I just received an offer from Union Square Advisors for a summer internship. I have some alumni/ contacts at FT Partners and RBC that I can leverage. Between USA, FT Partners, and RBC tech, which bank do you think will provide me with the best learning experience and exit opps to PE?
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Cannot speak to the other two, but FT has a very good reputation in payments and fintech. I would imagine they place well into tech and software-focused funds given their industry expertise.
Horrible culture though
I've never seen an exit from USA
This is just not true. A simple 20 second LinkedIn search will let you find that USA has decent exits including Point72 (top HF), Permira (incredibly strong tech PE), CapitalG (Google's PE arm), and some good lateral movements if you even consider lateraling an exit.
OP, you can't go wrong with any of the 3. All 3 are known brands in San Francisco and will open you up to headhunters (if exits are truly your biggest concern). Culture in SF is known for being "pretty good" for banking in comparison to NY, and it's especially the right move if you want to be in tech. All 3 have deal-flow and at least on USA and FT Partner's websites, you can find that, although mid-sized, they do lots of deals and that all their analysts look pretty bright. You sound like you're in a good position.
Yeah this is blatantly false. They get good exits in VC and growth equity
OP asked about private equity, which I assumed meant traditional buyouts.
Iirc RBC is top tier now
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Forum won't let me comment on original post. Do you know if US Advisors could be still in the market for FT analysts 2020? Also do you have any advice or heard anything the office that might set me apart in the online application questions? @targetdro
bump
It's been a few years, but I went through processes with both USA and FT Partners.
US Advisors
Good culture with improving deal quality. I still get the deal tombstones via email - they've been on a lot of sell-side mandates lately; which is an improvement as they used to do a lot of cap raises and buyside advisory (less technical). Partners are a bit of a grab bag - Carter McClelland was a legend in his own right, but mainly for picking and guiding Frank Quattrone.
It's a very solid tech firm with decent exits; but don't expect to be competitive in recruiting with the GS TMT and the Qatalyst kids. It does seem like a place where you can make a solid IB career as they promote from within and they seem to respect work-life balance.
FT Partners
FTP is a much more aggressive firm - this is mainly due to their founder, Steve Mclaughlin. He drinks his own kool aid, but FTP is really the only niche player in their space with a very strong track record. Some of the work there is brutal - they have an internal team that tracks every single deal within the space and creates comps/summary decks for those deals, even if they were never involved.
I'd reluctantly say that some of the guys I interviewed with here were... not so nice. It's a tough culture but the track record, reps, and product are undeniably good. It's truly party-hard work hard - heard that he took the whole firm to the Super Bowl on the 50, they rent out Omnia every year for their conference, etc.
I also heard anecdotally that they didn't have a shared drive for years - people just emailed each other files all day. Weird, don't know if it's true, but made sense with the hardcore culture and "getting it done".
RBC
Can't speak specifically to the RBC tech team unfortunately. They are strong in debt products, but generally only land large deals because they have poached senior MD's from good banks - junior bankers seem unimpressive.
Did you end up taking the offer? Or did you try and leverage it? Ping me.
If you want to do tech, US Advisors If you want to do fintech specifically, probably FT Partners Everything else, RBC
US Advisors has good culture; RBC is big bank, so different groups have different cultures... FT...
RBC is easily the strongest out of the three unless you’re really set on fintech
Little late on the post, sorry, but I went through the process at RBC and they are becoming progressively more competitive in tech and pride themselves on their growth over the past 5 years. They pitch against some of the bigger banks for deals now. It seemed like a good culture; everyone I spoke with there was nice and emphasized how much upper management actually cared about them and rewarded them for their performance.
is it true US Advisors sponsors international students?
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