TMT Europe overview

Hey everyone,

I am a recent grad from a UK target school (think imperial, lse, Oxbridge). I am doing a long-term internship in a tech-focused boutique now. I was wondering how Arma Partners, Qatalyst, Jefferies, GP Bullhound, Financière Cambon, Clipperton, Panmure Gordon, William Blair, Silverpeak, LionTree compare in terms of culture & exit opportunities (for Vc/Growth Equity/PE tech). Which BBs has the best Tech or TMT team in London?

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to give any insight!

 

In EMEA, Arma are no.1 for mid market TMT M&A, very high profile transactions with probably the best deal flow across the street. They’re also good for large cap, they even win large cap deals over the bulge brackets and EBs. Very strong exit opportunities to growth equity and traditional PE. Good pay too.

William Blair is also very strong for mid market Tech M&A, although they have brutal hours with a tough culture, they normally staff people on multiple projects which results in little sleep and no life outside work. Know a couple people who left due to the hours.

Jefferies is good for overall TMT (ECM and M&A) but they have claw backs on bonuses.

Evercore is decent, similar to a William Blair / Jefferies but no where near as strong as an Arma.

GP bullhound is no.1 for small cap deals (below £100m), great culture and good deal flow. Exit ops are good for VC opportunities, they also have a VC fund which has made strong returns.

 

Based Analyst 3+ in IB - Ind shilling for Arma in every thread

 
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ex-analysts who work there... they fired a bunch of analysts 1 (basically those who just converted from their 6 month internship) 1 week / day before bonus back in September. They also fire people who below the median score / rank every 3 months. 

They also cut people during COVID / lockdown (https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/3003463/arma-partners-cuts-cor…

I believe (to be confirmed) that they also put you on probation when you get promoted (from Analyst to Associate, Associate to VP etc) and an associate who was promoted got fired right before probation ended. 

not a good culture but maybe that's changed since the partners aren't looking to sell the firm anymore and actually need people? 

on deal flows, yes they have a lot of deals but these include your series A, B, C, growth investments, general capital raise which I guess is great for building relationships with these companies before they sell them (see deal list here - https://www.armapartners.com/deals/). I think this experience would be good for VC but not sure whether it is applicable for general PE

 

Work in the TMT team at a European BB. For tech, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are top with JPM and BoA a bit behind. You'll find the tech landscape in Europe is a bit different and so you'll often see these names doing series D/E financings etc as it's just smaller. This is a big part of how they win good IPOs / be the advisor of choice for M&A and things.

Other bulge brackets do some tech but mostly focus on media/telecoms/legacy tech companies. Of the boutiques, Lazard covers a lot of public/legacy tech companies. Evercore and Arma focus on more middle-market tech but occasionally do large deals, with a lot of work with PE buyers. Just need to keep in mind that European middle market is very different from the US and so you'll often see GS, Evercore, PWP etc. all competing even on 'smaller' deals. Liontree, PWP etc, are all like Evercore and Arma but just to a slightly weaker extent although I'd probably say Arma, PWP and Liontree are all in the same bucket really. GP Bullhound is great for what they do and definitely has good VC exits, people there are super knowledgable and you should read some of the content they put on their website. Qatalyst is a bit different because they only work on selling high-growth businesses to the large tech buyers, and you'll see that there are not many large deals like this in Europe so probably why their team is so small, but if you get offers there I would recommend them over nearly all the other names apart from GS, JP, MS and BofA

 

Depends where. I would say for the legacy shop like Lazard, Greenhill, etc it's pretty much all M&A. Evercore must be pretty much all M&A too. Arma, on the other hand, is most financings, minority investments and that's why you see they have 'large deals' but it's only for say 15% of a business so ultimately your M&A experience is v. different from selling all of a company to a strategic. I would say for the bulge brackets it a lot of capital markets work, more financings to build relationships but then ultimately IPOs and some M&A. At the top BB's it would just be the odd series E financing for something v hot and then mostly M&A and IPOs I would imagine.

For my bank, it's more debt/capital markets work for media / teleco's over tech. Tech is just very different as a landscape to the other two. You'll see it in the M&A too. We might work on two or three large cap teleco deals in a year but one smaller tech deal that is deemed 'as important', it's just that the tech landscape in Europe is smaller and more competitive across the banks.

 

Arma is extremely strong in Europe there is no doubt about that. Some of the BB teams do larger deals obviously but that is not the right KPI for a tech team IMO, unless you want to go get hired by e.g. Silverlake London and do max 1 deal per 3 years.... Arma has a really interesting position in terms of volume and value. They took over a lot of volume when the old Jefferies /Broadview team was dismantled after the firm's strategy change. No idea about exit.

 

Let me end this once and for all. ARMA does not dominate tech landscape in Europe. 

They rarely do big deals and when they do, it’s a minority sale or a sale from Fund II to Find III. If it’s a legit deal, they never ever take the lead role.

I will not buy anyone ever left JPM tech to join ARMA willingly because ARMA dominates European tech.

STOP PROMOTING ARMA, ITS A WEIRD PLACE WITH SH*T CULTURE

 

Torch Partners is a solid shop - basically poached houlihan lokeys tech team and when i last checked, they have now doubled the headcount. Solid shop for financings (LMM and MM) and will now begin to do more (c.£100m) M&A transactions to become a well rounded mm tech shop. Also has probably the most connected MD I have seen, a origination machine who routinely sources some incredible transactions.

 

I can provide large cap PE perspective on deals in the technology space.

Yes, Arma does dominate the sponsor sellsides up to EUR 1bn. YTD they have done Xceptor (sold to Astorg), Allocate (Hg/Vista portfolio sold to TA-backed RLDatix), Unit4 (sold to TA). Goldman is strong for sponsor deals above that threshold (IFS in 2020, Advanced in 2019). Banks like Evercore, Jefferies (both had mandate for Calypso sale) or William Blair (System C sale to CVC) are also present in the sub 1bn sponsor space.

The above is only valid for PE deals, doesn't include corporate deals (Goldman did FP-backed BluJay sale this year). Banks like JPM or Citi are rather stronger for Tech IPOs

 

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