RBC London thoughts?
How is RBC 's M&A team in London?
Deal flow?
Culture / Hours?
Compensation? I understand they pay market base salary but any idea on bonuses?
Exit opportunities to buyside ?
Thank you.
May 12, 2021
May 12, 2021
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Comments ( 42 )
Weak team, severely understaffed at the junior level, massive turnover (hence all the postings), bonuses slightly below market and ok exits given recent brand name improvements in certain sectors.
Partially agree - M&A team is one of the weaker teams. The only RBC teams in London worth considering are PUI and FIG really.
What makes FIG a stronger team? Struggling to find much information online - dealflow and which FIG verticals do they focus on?
what makes it a "weak team" exactly?
heard it's a fairly new team and hand picks the juniors from coverage groups. if it's like NYC where they hold the model, surely it's not that bad?
Quality of people on the team and REAL deal flow (not piggy-backing off balance sheet ). They DO NOT hold the model in London M&A and half the time neither does NYC M&A (used to work there in a team that wouldn't let these jokers anywhere near our models on both side of the Atlantic). And in terms of "hand picking juniors" - all those hand picked ones have left so there are no juniors there so to say other than all the new hires they brought in last month.
What's the reputation for their S&T division?
Working in a sector team that has worked with them a lot:
Deal flow? They are busy, but it is a very top heavy team. As a result, most teams don't get the resourcing they want from the team.
Culture / Hours? Culture i've heard / seen is very good. Hours are mixed. They have the support of us sector guys but also are running multiple deals.
Compensation? I understand they pay market base salary but any idea on bonuses? Only a couple teams at RBC London get paid at top end of range, and that's the product teams and a couple of the best sector teams already mentioned.
Associates exit to PE , they rarely leave to other banks given the culture.
Am guessing the negative views here are based on people that either didn't get staffing, or got worked hard by them, as internally, they are v well respected. PUI / FIG / RE are all v specific so they always hold the model which is the case at almost all large banks with execution teams. Nothing new.
You mentioned some of the product teams get the top end of the bonus range? Which product teams are these? does the London M&A execution team not fall into this?
Associate exits to PE from RBC London are a fairytale mate. Nobody takes RBC seriously in London. Wake up
edit: To those who give me monkey shit - you either work there to this date or trolls. I worked there, and I know for a fact that 99.9% of people don't go to good buy-side places lol. Absolute majority exits to other banks.
Quite surprised by the feedback here as it's a strong team. Turnover to buy side at junior levels but people in those teams develop well (hence not exiting to other banks like the majority of others here). Have been on a situation where the sector VP or D had no idea how to actually do a deal once it was won, and messed up in front of the client. As soon as M&A came in everything ran smooth. Clients listen to their advice more than most sector guys
What do you actually do as an analyst/associate in their m&a team? i don't understand what they do that the sector teams dont, do the m&a team just do the boring process/admin work?
The team does not hire at the analyst level I had thought. They tend to take hire senior analysts that show an interest once trained from sector teams. Associates then can and will do anything on a deal. That can be model or CIM (or both), other marketing materials, process management, etc. For a public deal, model and UK code too. Anywhere on that spectrum. I would assume it depends on each situation.
Understood thanks, what is the purpose of the sector teams then? Do the sector teams just focus purely on origination and then once a transaction is mandated the M&A team take over?
Any idea about hours and weekend work?
One way to think of it is: size. M&A team is typically 15 - 20 people. Some ( Barclays ) split UK and Sell Side (execution for sell sides). Some, combine them ( Jefferies , RBC). These teams are supporting 10x sector bankers. This is why the role changes on different situations. There are not 40 analysts to have one on each deal. Think about how many deals are being worked on at one time across the rest of the teams, it is not surprising that these teams are typically top heavy.
It is better to join as a technically strong senior analyst / associate imo. That way, no matter what is thrown at you in public or private deals, you have the skills to do it. This is why it is hard to find good M&A generalists. This is one reason why they have and will be rewarded well in terms of compensation across banks.
Sector teams transact a lot of their own deals at most places where M&A does not have people to support on (at junior level). At VP or Director or MD level at Sector, they are pitching and winning business in sector teams. These roles will always be supported by M&A VP/D/MD once the deal is won. These sector people will stay on the deal too for the client relationship angle.
At analyst / associate, in sectors they support pitching. When they win the deal, they will stay on the deal and work on the deal, given the structure provided above. Sometimes that is alongside M&A. Sometimes not, if no one can help from M&A.
M&A is good for either leaving at associate level to PE , or staying long-term in banking, as the skill set becomes very nuanced to find generalists who can do all the various deal types, public items, code, private across sectors. Keep this in mind.
If your goal is not to be a long-term banker, then maybe a sector team can also open doors to that sector team at a PE house of your preference. If a sector team is what you are wanting, weigh up that once VP and up, you will go from being keyboard monkey to sales person. Are you able to do that and does that interest you? This is less the case in M&A/ ECM / DCM .
Hours vary, what level are you asking at? Associates have very busy periods as you would expect, but also down time. VP/D looks quite nice from a distance, as managing multiple processes. Not sure about weekends.
Agree largely with Outsourced, but some execution teams are a lot bigger (think MS) and so have more rigid standards in place.
Are you from HR? Buy-side exits from RBC M&A are to shitty, no-name shops except for one guy who went to KKR but his dad is head of IB in Canada ( BAML if I recall correctly).
Otherwise people exit to other banks.
Nice try. Nobody cares about RBC .
Following
Just wanted to revive this thread and see if anyone had any updated info on London RBC M&A or just London RBC IB in general? A VP from my team has moved there and asked me to join, I need to make the decision quite quickly. Any help would be very useful
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Lmaooo don't go there, I think they've burned through like 4 recruiters now trying to find people to join their Industrials team which they try to mask as an "M&A team"
Could you be a bit more specific plz. Why the churn in recruiters? Also any thoughts on FIG cov?
Deleted
Found the RBC associate...
Haha no but fair I agree it very much depends on where you are coming from and what you are looking for. On the culture, I'm not sure I can agree as I've heard pretty rough stories from some people there, again this will always be group dependent. I also know people who exited to small no-name boutiques from RBC just because of the long hours and mediocre comp, deal flow is quite poor too but I hear picking up. Having said that I also know of a guy who exited to KKR , who is one of the sharpest associates I know - this is not the norm so don't expect a MFPE exit from RBC though.
To the OP, I don't have much insight into FIG , but I hear it is one of the better teams along with PUI. Just noting that everyone says RBC PUI is strong, which I think may not be the case after most of the senior team picked up and moved to Jefferies a couple of years ago. I would weigh my other options and what you're looking for in your career before making a move.
Am interested in learning more about this comment - can you PM?
Anyone able to provide some insight into their industrials & business services team? What size range of deals do they play in?
Seems like they have hired a couple of MDs recently and are hiring an analyst... so would hope they have deal flow?
Also if anyone knows whether the group focuses on M&A or is more capital advisory focused?
push
How is the healthcare team there?
Anyone got insight on their TMT , Healthcare or Consumer teams in London?
Tmt is really focused on texh infrastructure in London. Group head is a good guy, very m&a focused banker.
Consumer team is led by ex Nomura / Lehman. Solid across consumer verticals, good flow on m&a and financing.
Healthcare is very much pharma / services focused, and a little bit of medtech. Team head leads pharma, senior director the rest. Lots of work with US. Some m&a flow, but more heavy on financing.
Consumer probably the most stable / established of the three with some really large deals advised on recently.
All teams fairly heavily sponsor-focused - TMT more with infra funds.
PM for more details
Anyone have views on the mining team?
Together with PUI, best sector team on the floor. Good deal flow and great team but it's expected you hit the ground running.
Anybody got insight into the PUI wlb? just got hit up for a lateral and keen to learn a bit more
They only get infra fund buy-sides (don't have the rep in London to secure sell-sides) so it's a non stop sweatshop baby. 1/10 of these materialise. Majority of exits are to the other banks or to the infra funds that grinded them out to death.
TBF sounds exactly like my current team lol
Surprised they dont get sell sides considering they have balance sheet ...
You know so little…it's astonishing.
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