Top US Project Finance Groups/Infrastructure PE Groups 2020
I recently married my American girlfriend and am beginning the process of emigrating to the US in late 2020. I am at a boutique in the UK with a project finance focus, but we also do M&A in infrastructure/energy/resources. I have done a bit of research and have a general idea of the project finance/infrastructure PE space in NY but am looking for someone active in the US to give a bit of colour re the top groups in these niches. Particularly interested in hearing from people in NY, Houston and SF/LA.
Look at European/Foreign banks like MUFG, Santander, Macquarie, etc. Those tend to deal more in the project financing side of infra due to large balance sheets.
I'm a PF analyst in the US. As far as I know, all PF in the US is run out of NY.
While the banks you mentioned may be top of the league tables due to sheer quantity of deals, the analyst experience is definitely not as good as it is at the BBs. The foreign banks (espec Japanese & French) do a lot of syndicated loan underwriting and often can't compete on pure advisory / structuring / acqfin mandates, which are a lot more interesting to work on, and provide better experience for buyside moves. Macquarie has a good group, but the others you mentioned (+ SMBC, Mizuho, SocGen, Agricole, etc etc.) definitely fall into the former bucket.
In my experience (+ chatting to friends across the street), it's really the American BBs, espec. GS/JPM/C that offer the best PF analyst experience. MS has a dedicated group as well, but haven't seen them on a lot of deals. The deals they do get on are big though simply because its MS. Not sure how BAML + BarCap are set up, but they're both quite active. Deutsche has a dedicated group too but have definitely been less active recently. Haven't heard much about CS / UBS.
Of the foreign banks, BNP has a great group in NY, and RBC / HSBC have been active as well. If you're looking for more of an M&A focus, JPM is really strong in the space, as are Evercore + Macquarie, in addition to the other BBs. RBC has been making waves too.
I hate rankings, but for the sake of discussion: gun to my head, if I had to choose the 'best' PF bank in NY for analysts, I'd go with JPM, followed closely by GS + C.
OP here, many thanks for your detailed response. Tend to agree with your views on the Japanese/French banks, have been on the other side of transactions involving several of those mentioned and have not been particularly impressed with their capability. Nice enough people but they definitely lean on their balance sheets to win work.
I have heard great things about RBC but will look into the American BBs. I guess I should have defined what I meant by "top", which is best analyst experience, culture and interesting deals, but you have covered that off nicely. Cheers!
What is C?
If you were able to shoot me a PM I have a couple of questions - I'd super appreciate it!
Let’s keep this public for the benefit of others - not a lot of good PF info on WSO. How can I help?
Good point! Nomura is interviewing for their project finance team. I saw above where you said the more interesting work is being in advisory roles as opposed to underwriting in a syndicate. Is there a way to track advisory roles on Bloomberg? I've only been able to view by bookrunner/MLA. I think Nomura is growing their practice - the head of their group was hired in 2017 from Deutsche. If you had any thoughts on this that would be great.
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