Banks
Who is who, and how the tiers actually work: the bulge bracket, the elite boutiques, the middle market and the European houses.
Banking and finance
Central banks and supervisorsMonetary policy, bank supervision
Investment banksAdvisory and capital markets
Development banksLending with a public mandate
Hedge funds and asset managers
Corporate developmentDeals from inside a company
Private banksClient money, fees on assets
Pension and sovereign funds
Risk, operations and technologyThe functions around the front office
- Sell side
- Investment banksAdvisory and capital markets
- Sales, trading and research
- Risk, operations and technologyThe functions around the front office
- Buy side
- Private equity and venture
- Hedge funds and asset managers
- Pension and sovereign funds
- In between
- Corporate developmentDeals from inside a company
- Private banksClient money, fees on assets
- Public institutions
- Central banks and supervisorsMonetary policy, bank supervision
- Development banksLending with a public mandate
Sorted the way Mergers & Inquisitions sorts careers: the buy side raises money and invests it for management and performance fees; the sell side earns fees for issuing, selling and trading securities; some firms sit between the two. Public institutions sit outside both - the ECB sets euro-area monetary policy and supervises the largest banks, and the EIB describes itself as the EU's lending arm.1-3
Four labels cover almost every bank you will apply to. They sort banks by two things - whether the bank can lend and underwrite as well as advise, and how big the deals it wins are - and those two things decide most of what the job is like: the work, the hours, the pay and where you can go next.
Europe's own banks are rarely what their size suggests. Most are trading and lending houses with an advisory arm attached, a few have retreated from advice altogether, and the one European name that leads the continent's M&A tables by deal count is not a bank balance sheet at all.