What is life like in an IB satellite office?
Have an offer from an EB for a regional office- would rather not be too specific because these offices are pretty small, but think LAZ/EVR Boston, MOE/GHL Chicago, etc.
Is life in a satellite office going to be a different experience than working at an NY headquarters (or a big office in SF/LA)? Worried about a few things:
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less analysts/associates. Only going to be a handful of each in this office, which probably makes for a worse social experience and means a smaller network down the road.
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only a few MDs- in a big NY office I could meet/work with a lot of senior folks, in this office there are only a few. What if I don't get along with them?
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exit ops? Are exit ops limited to this city? I imagine it would be hard to do on cycle NYC PE recruiting given the distance.
-prestige- are satellite offices seen as less prestigious? I feel like working in NYC is seen as the pinnacle of finance (and SF the same for tech-based finance), and coming from a T2 city I will be seen as 2nd rate talent. Is there any truth to that?
-deals: are deals generally cross-staffed across offices? As I mentioned earlier, most mega mergers and big IPOs are likely in NYC and SF, so I'm worried this satellite office will not get as interesting of a deal flow. There is a decent buy side scene in my city, but I'm worried I'm only going to be doing ~1B M&A deals with UMM PE firms rather than some of the really interesting deals I see happening in NY.
Anyone have experience with life in a satellite office? I'm leaning to taking the offer because I like the firm and don't want to roll the dice on recruiting with the banks that are left, but I'm just a little nervous being in a small office. Also, I was chatting with an analyst and asked about switching to NYC for FT, but he mentioned it's actually pretty difficult because many candidates from satellite offices try to move into NY, and the satellite offices try to retain their talent and don't want all their SAs leaving to NY, so I don't really want to assume that I could do that.
I work at a satellite office of an EB. Here are my takes on some of the issues you've pointed out. I think this definitely varies by bank / office as well, so take with a grain of salt:
In general, yes -- I think that life in a satellite is different than working at the NY headquarters. I view my office as kind of a semi-independent branch of the larger firm. We have our own best practices, model templates, and other standards that can differ from NY.
One thing that I do feel like I've missed out on is having a real "bullpen" experience. Because we only have a handful of junior bankers, especially when we're all busy, there's not a lot of social interaction and different people you can talk to. I'm lucky that I've gotten along with all the analysts and associates that I've worked with, but we don't really socialize outside of office happy hours and things like that. I think this depends on the personalities in your junior class though -- I'm sure with less people you may get even closer with the analysts you do work with. I guess your network may be smaller but I don't think it necessarily has to be a drastic difference. Our firm did month-long training with all the junior bankers at the NY HQ, so you'll get to know everyone in your class regardless and should be able to maintain those connections if you want (you are still at the same firm, after all). I still regularly keep in touch with colleagues from the NY / other satellite offices.
Regarding senior bankers, that's really just a toss-up based on the office and don't think you should put too much weight on that. There will probably always be senior people that you don't get along with, at any point in your career. I'm not sure what your firm's structure is, but we work within industry groups, so the majority of the time you'll probably be working with the same handful of senior guys anyways, both in NY or in a satellite office. And as an analyst most of your direct interactions will be with the associate or VP, so I don't think this should matter too much. I also found that I enjoyed not having too many senior bankers. One person can only do so much at one time, so having only a few senior guys kind of caps the maximum amount of work at a certain level, and if you have a strong junior team, lifestyle can be better especially during slower periods.
I don't think exit ops are limited to your region. I've had friends who recruited for opportunities across the country and did fine. But it'll probably be harder to recruit into NY than out of NY since the NY market is more competitive, and it'll also be dependent on how supportive your office is of recruiting (it's easier to make an excuse to interview somewhere in your area than have to figure out how to be away for an entire day while being on a plane).
I personally don't feel that others viewed my office as less prestigious -- I recruited for my region because I wanted to be in this location for personal / lifestyle reasons. But I also recruited for buy-side within my city, so others may have a more informed perspective on this.
I think staffings on deals is also highly dependent on how your groups are spread across the firm and if you have strong senior bankers in your regional office. For my office personally, we handle our sector solely from our office and our MDs bring in a lot of business to the firm, so we've never been short on deal flow. We basically run everything from our satellite office, even for larger multi-B deals, so we have super lean deal teams and as an analyst you get great client exposure and a lot of responsibility. I've been staffed across offices sometimes, but this isn't as common and normally happens if we need to pull in support from an area we don't have as much expertise in (like restructuring, for example).
I personally don't regret being at a satellite office and think that I still gained a ton of valuable experience, maybe even more so than my peers at larger offices. Again, this is highly dependent on a variety of factors and can vary from office to office, so my experience might not be completely applicable to you, but hopefully still somewhat helpful.
What about the IB "community" in your city? I know that bankers don't just "all hang out" on the weekends or after hours, but do you find this other large city you're at (assuming it's Boston/Chicago/LA) still gives you opportunities to meet/network with other bankers in this city? Or, because it's not NYC, is it sort of like there's no centralized force that occasionally brings a bunch of you together?
I think the small size kind of is the centralized force that brings the finance community together here. A lot of people work here because they went to school here or they grew up in the area, so you end up meeting others in finance through your coworkers and it's easy to make / maintain that connection because there's not many of us. I think the network is very interconnected (seems like everyone knows everyone through at least some distant connection) so not hard to meet others through people you already know. There are also a decent number of finance networking events hosted in the city, and since it's a smaller community there's not an overwhelming number of people and you can actually make good connections. I've been to handful of these and have met a ton of people this way too.
i would assume networking with the NYC office mostly
everyone is remote now.
This is for summer 2021, meaning I won’t start full time until summer 2022. I’d bet a lot of money we will all be back in the office then...
I really love working in a satellite office and especially the lifestyle, but it is unique to each person.
Fewer junior people does not necessarily make for a worse social experience, but it depends on the firm and group of course. If you recruit for a regional office and like all the people... that's it, really. Those are the people you will work with. There aren't any bad surprises to be had or cliques. On the upside it can feel like a really close knit group of friends
In a big office you could work with a lot of MDs. You also could possibly not. Your probability of having an excellent MD goes up, and your probability of having a nightmare MD goes up. If you have met the MDs at your regional office, again that's it. If you've done the proper research during your informationals you should already basically know what you're walking into
Exit ops are always strongest in the city you're working in, including NY. I would flip this question back to you: why do you want to exit to NY? If you really want to end up working in NY, just go to NY. Your lifestyle will be completely different. Up to you. On-cycle traditional recruiting and trying to change locations from summer to FT isn't very easy at all.
Satellite offices are generally not seen as less prestigious, except maybe by the WSO crowd of prospects. Each team is in a given city for a reason (the clients) and that's a pretty damn good reason. Sometimes you have to explain that to New Yorkers shrug
Depends on the bank on whether and how they cross-staff
Warning
The casual disparagement of $1bn UMM PE M&A deals is such a prospect thing to say. You haven't even interned yet, what the hell do you know about what deals are interesting? Sounds like a typical college preftige chaser, if I could be brutally honest. Get over yourself.
What about lateraling within your non-NYC city? Smaller offices mean fewer positions, but also probably less competition.
Do you find that, if you did want to move within your city, there are ample opportunities? Also, what is the HH situation for your city? Would you say they reach out to bankers/finance people at a healthy rate in your city (regarding other opportunities), or nowhere near the rate that NYC finance people get offered other opportunities?
Thanks for the info.
Possible to lateral but timing matters a lot and it's situational...a lot of Analysts stay where they are and exit to PE. Somewhat of a different situation for Associates.
Major headhunters in all major cities where they have regional BB/EB offices including mine.
Appreciate the response. Wasn't trying to be condescending with the $1B deals thing, but when I spoke to analysts in networking they always discuss how their favorite deals are the more 'unique' deals, and some analysts I've spoken to have complained that getting staffed on very similar deals over and over again is more dull than doing a variety of different types of deals.
Realistically, you probably won't actually experience more than a small handful of deals from start to finish as an analyst, and after going through one or two live deals you'd probably be more than happy to do a couple mundane pitches lol. And it's low probability that all of the deals you will work on will be that similar to each other.
Side note, sponsor deals were some of the more interesting projects I've been on in my experience.
Given that you’re a senior, I assume you are gunning for MD. Do you think being in a sat office would make deal sourcing harder than in NYC?
Seems like you're at Lazard Boston, since Evercore doesn't have an office in Boston.
or Moe/Ghl Chicago. Both great offices
Delete
Our West Coast team always groaned when the NY LevFin team suggested a 9am ET (6am PT) call lmao
Lol
Does junior level comp in a satellite office differ from a larger market?
No. We get paid the same as our colleagues in the NY office.
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