Bank of America vs. UBS

dont go to a TARP bank.

Seconded. BofA will be the gov'ts bitch for some time.

As far as I know the swiss don't give a damn how much you pay in taxes, let alone how much you get paid

I really wouldn't go to UBS at this point either.

But fwiw, they were bailed out by the Swiss Gov. Credit Suisse is pretty much kicking their ass left and right.

I don't know anything about BOA-ML TMT but BOA will be a stronger bank as a whole one year from now.

fwiw, i had a summer analyst offer at one, and a FT offer at the other.

I think overall, I would choose UBS as well. BofA/ML is completely disintegrating in terms of IBD.

Oh also, UBS won't be paying street bonuses until they return to profitability. It was on bloomberg a couple of days ago.

Both are the "lower" BB's. I would take BoA because UBS has some serious issues with certain groups.

disclaimer: i've had offers from both

depends on group selections. upcoming 1st years are given group specific offers from what i hear.

• for ubs: has strong banking franchise in comparison to baml. has stronger m&a team than legacy baml. built strong ibd in almost a decade, maybe they can improve it even further. fslf team has great pe connections.

• for ubs: i have not seen them mandated on a recent landmark deal (correct me if i'm wrong). they opted to get out of the warner chilcott deal because they weren't up for the lending facility. analyst culture is horrible (word of mouth). associates and up shit on analysts more so than every other bank. healthcare team is nearly gone. heavy hitters have left more so than baml.

• for baml: has good m&a and sponsors group. though some m&a heavy hitters left, m&a team is legacy merrill. no sponsors heavy hitters left - mostly execution work even though lev fin is another group. tarp means pay caps for heavy hitters, none of who are analysts. bofa has commercial bank that baml can use for financing deals

• for baml: if you're not in a team with legacy merrill, your ibd group is subpar. culture at the firm is still shaky. pwm and ibd saw many heavy hitters leave

I would go with UBS overall because of the same reasons that Navigator listed. Also:

1. UBS 1st year analysts were paid street or higher ( PM me for the source ). Senior bankers is a different story, their bonuses are lower, but base pay was raised much more than at other banks. For example, JPM first year associates are getting a $95k base - UBS first year associates are getting $135k base. Kind of like a $40k guaranteed bonus. But you don't have to be concerned about how much they are getting paid. Just focus on the analyst experience.

2. I don't know where 1styearBanker gets his "lower BBs" idea from (probably some malformed idea of "prestige" in his sophomoric head), but check out: http://media.ft.com/cms/29a38658-af21-11dc-880f-0000779fd2ac.html . "Prestige" is a very dicey criterion to use when deciding on a bank. We all know Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were among the most "prestigious" banks around once upon a time.

3. When looking at profitability of banks to determine where you do your IBD stint, it is important to deconstruct where the "profitable" banks are making their profits, and where the "loss-making" banks are making their losses. Don't believe everything you see in the press because most journalists covering these topics are looking for the most sensational headline. For example, trading gains/losses only affect the S&T dept, and at most banks, does not mean that an IBD analyst gets a higher/lower bonus because of it. Accounting charges/gains heavily affect net income (and hence dividends) but not necessarily the operating cash flows of the company, from which bonuses are paid. Many firms (not just banks) have positive operating cash flows (used for salaries/bonuses, generally not reported in the headlines) and negative net incomes (used for dividends, generally reported in the headlines because that's what the common stockholder reading the paper cares about).

4. Go where you fit in and where you think you would like the work. The IB business is too cyclical and the analyst stint too short to be concerned with the grand statements made on this forum. Things can go from great to shitty in a very short period of time, and no one, except the guys at the very top, knows what tomorrow brings. Make the best decision you can right now, and quit trying to predict the future.

Why are you prospective analysts so concerned about a TARP bank? You are most likely going to be doing two years at this bank and your compensation will not reach a level that the government gives a shit about. If this is post MBA, that is a rational concern but for you analysts just take that out of the equation.

^ BofA is out of TARP now, btw.

Bstej, I can buy that. I'm glad you agree with my main point though as analyst comp is fairly similar across the major banks. Now to take the other side: Ews09, yeah they are out of TARP but they spent cash (also made a new common stock issuance) to buy back their preferred shares. The interest rate on the government's preferred shares was only about 5% which is cheap equity. BOA is now 26 billion ($45 billiion less the $19 billion in new common stock) more cash poor. They basically paid back cheap debt that they did not have to pay back yet. While this may release them from executive comp restrictions, it may not bode well for their overall profitability in the years to come.

^ You are retarded.

The only justifications for going to UBS over BofA are for people or group. Unless you land in a M&A or LevFin/Sponsors at UBS and decide to take that over a one of BofA's weaker industry groups.

1) UBS did not have a stronger franchise than Merrill. It did have a stronger franchise than BofA. However, UBS's brand is more or less destroyed after having to give up the names of its offshore accounts. Considering that the bull is being brought back, I would hardly say the Merrill culture or IBD division is disintegrating.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487035580045745814209103181…

2) Leggo my Gekko I don't know where you heard that the Sponsors heavy hitters left, but the sponsors team was untouched. Jeffrey Kaplan and Karim Assef (the two top 40 financial sponsors deal makers in 2007) are both still there. Considering they've been on almost all of the latest sponsors deals, this point is completely untrue.

3) Even if BoA was not paying back TARP, league table wise it is still outperforming UBS. To be as strong as it is on the league tables its first year into a merger is quite impressive.

I'll put it this way. At my target school, everyone who summered at UBS was looking to leave and trade up (which included Citi). Alternatively, there was no one with past BB experience who received an offer that even applied to UBS.

OP: Unless it's about people or product group vs. TMT. I cannot think of a reason to pick UBS otherwise. BofA ML has the stronger franchise and for the forseeable future will had the stronger IBD division.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch - corporate necrophilia. ML died the day it was subsumed into BoA.

Maybe in the US baml throws its balance sheet around more than UBS does, but I doubt that during the two years one will really be worse/better off for picking one bank over another. It's all about how well the group places.

1styearbanker... a little more specific if you're going to be a jackass... What exactly do you take issue with?