Top Investment Banks in each industry 2018

I have not seen a comprehensive list of the top banks for each industry. So many people new to the banking industry have this "GS is king" mentality without realizing that GS is outclassed in many industries. I think it would be really helpful to have one thread that lists the top 3-5 banks in each industry. Please share your knowledge. Thanks!

Mod Note (Andy): Don't miss the top comment below by user @lapike", and see our IB Industry Reports in our Company Database.

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All of the below are based on either league tables, hearsay, my own prejudices, or things I learned in history class.

  • Consumer: JPM or Goldman or Barclays
  • Energy & Power: MS or Citi or Evercore
  • FIG: JPM
  • Healthcare: JPM
  • Industrials: Citi or BAML or JPM
  • TMT: Goldman or BAML or JPM
  • Retail: Goldman
  • RGL: Goldman or JPM
  • Layoffs: DB
  • ...Her?: Nomura
  • http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/157248.stm</a" title="These motherfuckers even took the gold from dead Jews' teeth">Laundering Nazi Gold: UBS or CS
  • Failing at Rebranding: WF
  • Re-enacting "I Am Legend" by being the last bank left in London in 2025: Barclays
  • MM Industrials: Baird
  • MM Healthcare: Piper or Jefferies, but Baird and Blair are nipping at their heels
  • MM Consumer: Lazard, followed closely by Houlihan, Baird, Blair
  • MM Restructuring: Houlihan
  • MM TMT: Jefferies, Blair, Baird - but this is a huge tossup depending on how you cut it.
  • MM Doing funky math that gets you to 11x EBITDA leverage on your LBO: Jefferies
  • Intern Licking: CS
 

This is obviously my own opinion, and I don't know what much about every sector but (just a few top banks, not a particular order):

Tech: GS, MS, JPM, Qatalyst, Centerview Media & Telecom: MS, BAML, Evercore, Moelis and Guggenheim (media) Industrials: Citi, JPM, BAML, Lazard Energy: Citi, Barclays, Evercore, TPH Healthcare: MS, Lazard, JPM, Evercore, Centerview Consumer & Retail: GS, MS, JPM, BAML, Moelis, Evercore Real Estate: JPM, BAML, Evercore, FIG: GS, JPM Sponsors (Financing): JPM, BAML, CS, Jefferies (if you're looking for whack leverage) Sponsors (Actual Advisory): Evercore, Moelis, Lazard Large-Cap Restructuring: PJT, Lazard, Moelis Shareholder Activism / Defense: GS, Evercore

Obviously the top overall banks have strong groups across coverage teams and products, but thought I'd list a few groups that are well known / respected in each and try to cover many of the top banks' best teams.

 

How much does group matter other than for deal volume? I assume most F100 companies and MBA adcoms don't know which groups are strong. Probably some people in high finance wouldn't even know.

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What makes the group "strong" is the relationship the a senior banker has with the executives of companies (e.g., Byron Trott bringing GS mandates from Warren Buffet).

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"TrackBack" This is obviously my own opinion, and I don't know what much about every sector but (just a few top banks, not a particular order):

Tech: GS, MS, JPM, Qatalyst, Centerview Media & Telecom: MS, BAML, Evercore, Moelis and Guggenheim (media) Industrials: Citi, JPM, BAML, Lazard Energy: Citi, Barclays, Evercore, TPH Healthcare: MS, Lazard, JPM, Evercore, Centerview Consumer & Retail: GS, MS, JPM, BAML, Moelis, Evercore Real Estate: JPM, BAML, Evercore, FIG: GS, JPM Sponsors (Financing): JPM, BAML, CS, Jefferies (if you're looking for whack leverage) Sponsors (Actual Advisory): Evercore, Moelis, Lazard Large-Cap Restructuring: PJT, Lazard, Moelis Shareholder Activism / Defense: GS, Evercore

Obviously the top overall banks have strong groups across coverage teams and products, but thought I'd list a few groups that are well known / respected in each and try to cover many of the top banks' best teams.

I'm not an expert across all industries w/r/t bank rankings but:

For Tech - GS, MS, Qatalyst seriously dominate all the sell-side M&A mandates. Like as in I've yet to see a sell-side M&A deal of a minimum size (>$100m) that isn't represented by one of them. Rest of the banks are all lined up for buyside financing

Media & Telecom - I would add PJT (M&T is Taubman's forte), and JPM (they dominate the Media space)

Sponsors (Financing) - you may find this surprising but JPM is not as as active in the sponsor financing area (LBO) as you would think. At least in the US, the bulk of JPM's levfin deal flow is from corporates, not from sponsor LBOs. It's not that they are incapable of doing it, but they are very conservative when it comes to terms/leverage (relatively speaking), but you will see them often in M&A financing (not highly levered LBOs). When it comes to Sponsor LBO financings, I would put it as CS/Barclays, Jefferies, DB/BAML, in that order. European banks take the torch here

Restructuring: any RX related league table needs to include HLHZ...

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I think you have the right idea here in looking at sell-side M&A mandates of a certain size. Sell-side M&A fees are by far the most lucrative in the sense that they are 1) massive as a % of the deal 2) don't require significant S&T infrastructure like Capital Markets transactions and 3) don't require any balance sheet commitments like LevFin work. Buy side mandates are not as lucrative and can almost be won on institutional relationship/balance sheet alone independent of the quality of industry group working on them. As such, looking at the number of sell-side mandates a group has closed over a certain period of time is probably the best way to measure the strength of the group. Rankings based on $ values can be distorted by large transactions, which while impressive, may not speak to the ability of that group to consistently win sell-side mandates. Additionally, winning numerous sell-side mandates increases the ability of that group to win more sell-side mandates as their experience in the sector is broader as opposed to "deeper" by having won one really large mandate which will only be useful in that particular sub-sector (e.g. GS representing DuPont in Dow/Dupont vs MS with 9 sell-sides in Chemicals vs GS's 6 over the last 3 years).

 

JEF over TPH any day on upstream, agreed that Evercore and BBs like Citi/Barclays are also tops because they do all the cap markets / many midstream deals

 

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