I've been in securitization for close to 6 years, and I'm going to have to disagree with this comment. It really depends on the bank/strength of your group. The banks that you mentioned have long hours.

Barclays - absolute sweatshop. They are doing really well (top players in all asset classes) and offer numerous products including structuring + lending, have a strong sales team. Most securitization folks came from Lehman.

Citi - I think they do 8-9 M-Fri, but it depends on asset class. Citi has strong deal flow, so I would imagine 70 hour weeks to be the norm on average

BOFA - Sweaty. Top competitor in ABS.

CS - Sweaty, top competitor. They've lost some MDs in recent years but they're a top player.

Comp is generally lower for securitization folks compared to coverage, but you're still paid really well. Long-term path is buy-side/join a start-up/treasury department of a company. 

 

If you are in one of the highly technical and modeling heavy groups such as Infrastructure, Transportation, or Real Estate Structed Products you would have hours that tend to be similar to an industry coverage group. Can be sweaty with some groups working pretty consistently ~80 hours a week on average 9:30-1AM Monday-Thursday. This would account for high deal mode weeks where you are working more on Sundays/Saturdays.  The ABS team also can work a ton at times depending on their deal teams, know that at the junior level hours are more like 8-12 for harder weeks. That being said some weeks can be quite light and can be working only 60. 

Easier groups are those that are less modeling heavy, solely markets/credit focused and will work closer to 60-70(max) on average. 

From a career progression standpoint my recommendation is to go with a group that is conducive to long term optionality, this could either come from a more industry agnostic group like ABS, or from a group that is going to give you really good modeling exposure like infrastructure. This would be far better in my eyes than many of the other capital markets groups (DCM/ECM/Syndicate groups) that are going to probably limit your ability to transfer to PE or other given that you're actually gaining solid tangible skills. 

Bonus Compensation is 10% on average less than coverage given the hours are very similar. 

Source: At one of the 4 listed above. Hope this helps

 

Are there any other firms that are known to be a sweatshop, heard structured products was relatively less work than coverage so would be good to know which banks this isn't true for

 
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Decent work life balance. You do long hours when executing mandates but it’s not everyday. 60-80 hours if I had to guesstimate.

Comp in line with IBD.

Exit ops: plenty of departments within securitization to lateral off to (origination, structuring, syndicate, trading etc).

You could also go credit funds as well as there a few funds out there doing the same thing as the IB groups (APO, BX, KKR, Ares etc). Most of those people are from the origination/ structuring side.

Hope this helps?

 

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