"The Pulse" -- #87 / Rise of Boutique IB

Recruiting Timeline:

Banking:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: DC Advisory, Harris Williams, Tidal Partners, and 3 others opened their summer 2026 apps. 65 firms are actively recruiting for summer 2026 positions

New SA 2026 Applications:

• DC Advisory: Middle market IB (SA 2026)

• Societe Generale: Large French bank (SA 2026)

• Stifel: Full-service, middle market bank (SA 2026)

• Harris Williams: Boutique M&A (SA 2026)

• Tidal Partners: Boutique TMT focused bank (SA 2026)

• CMD: Industrials-focused boutique (SA 2026)

See below to gain access to our premium database, updated weekly, which houses the application processes for over 300+ banks/consulting/buyside firms! Gain an edge over everyone else by not having to spend countless hours tracking applications and deadlines.

Consulting:

Where We’re At:

• 57 SA 2025 applications have been released along with 63 FT 2025 apps. Firms could still be hiring for one-off associate roles, but incoming classes have been filled.

• 2026 Recruiting has started but is in the very early days. There are 3 open applications–we don’t expect MBB/Big 4 apps to open for a few months.

SA 2025 released apps:

• Sylvain - Summer Strategy Intern (SA 2025)

FT 2025 released apps:

• Goldratt Consulting - Strategy Analyst (FT 2025)

SA 2026 released apps:

• Berkeley Research Group - Associate Corporate Finance & Restructuring (SA 2026)

Apply ASAP if you’re interested!

Buyside:

Where We’re At:

• SA 2026: Alpine Investors, Silversmith Capital Partners, Weiss Asset Management and 3 others opened their SA 2026 applications. Currently 45 buyside firms are recruiting for SA 2026 seats 

New SA 2026 released apps:

• Alpine Investors: PE / GE, middle market firm (SA 2026)

• Silversmith Capital Partners: Growth equity (SA 2026)

• Weiss Asset Management: Large multi-strat HF (SA 2026)

• Battery Ventures: Tech-focused VC (SA 2026)

• UVIMCO: UVA’s endowment fund (SA 2026)

• Neuberger Berman: Large alternatives asset manager, non-IG research (SA 2026)

The database is updated weekly and contains 300+ Investment Banking and Consulting internships/full-time positions along with:

• Interview tips for specific companies

• Interview prep material

• Applications and deadlines linked so that you can apply with one click

• Insider information about the application process

• Professionals to network with

• Buyside deadlines, interview prep, and people to network with for the sweatiest of students

We send the updated dataset every week with the latest banking and consulting job postings. We released our 87th update today.

Students we have been helping have already landed roles at Blackstone, Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Citi, and Solomon.

To get access to the database and the weekly updates, you pay a one-time fee of $45 Credit Card / Debit Card: (ThePulsePrep—Stripe.com—30% off) that grants you annual access to the updated database (please reach out for additional payment options). If you don’t find our services helpful, we simply ask for feedback on an area we can improve upon and will refund your $45.

This is a small investment for a huge payout when you secure your dream offer!

Video of Premium Database——>The Pulse Database Video

Market Update:

We’ve compared and contrasted elite boutique banks and bulge brackets in the past and how their differences affect analysts. Today we’re going to discuss how behemoths like Goldman and Morgan Stanley lost market share to much leaner boutique banks.

After the GFC, there was increased scrutiny/restrictions placed on big banks. There were (and frankly still are) many conflicts of interest that led to problematic behavior. Traditional bulge bracket banks provide a bunch of services (trading, research, wealth management, deal advisory, lending, etc.).

When you have all of these business areas under one roof you don’t need a PHD to see how complicated the internal mechanics of these banks can be. Policies after the GFC were targeted toward fixing these conflicts of interest.

Increased scrutiny and decreased fee revenue drove out talent from BBs and many of these former MDs decided to start their own firms. After all, if you are an all-star M&A banker would you really want to put up with all the bureaucracy and governance at a bank with 100,000 employees? The alternative is that you could start your own firm and make a lot more money. The list of former BB MDs who went on to start elite firms is fairly extensive:

• Blair Effron - Co-founder of Centerview (Former UBS MD)

• Frank Quattrone - Founder of Qatalyst (Former Deutsche and Credit Suisse MD)

• Joseph Parella - Founding Partner of Perella Weinberg (Former Morgan Stanley MD)

• Peter Weinberg - Founding Partner of Parella Weinberg (Former Goldman MD)

• Ken Moelis - Founder of Moelis (Former UBS MD)

Those are just a few but the list goes on! All of these guys are experienced veterans with deep connections and expertise in their specific sectors. For example, Frank Quattrone is a renowned tech investment banker who did the Amazon IPO. Given the history of their founders, these boutiques typically have some sort of specialization.

Qatalyst is known for tech M&A and is largely San Francisco based and Centerview plays a role in just about every large healthcare deal. Over the years, EBs have taken significant market share from other banks. This will likely continue to be the case as star bankers opt to use their experience and connections to capture more $ for themselves.

By starting their own firms, these bankers could focus purely on deal advisory and take a much higher clip of fees for themselves.

In the below graphic, you can see that revenue per employee at the elite boutiques is astoundingly high. Therefore, it’s no surprise that analysts at these firms typically get paid more than their BB counterparts. There’s less corporate sprawl (admins etc.) so all that money can go to the revenue generators.

For some context, there is about a 10-20% pay gap between elite boutiques and bulge-bracket banks. That said, the pay gap is not so large that it should be the only driver in taking a gig at PWP over JPM.

Given the lean teams, ability to work on high-profile deals, and high pay, lots of students would prefer to work for an EB. All that said, if you are deciding between an EB and BB bank you are in a very fortunate spot and will have plenty of buyside opportunities.

See how we have compared EBs vs. BBs in the ‘Learning Point’ section here: "The Pulse" --#82 / Inflation Up, Rates Down? 

Disclosure: Nothing written here is financial advice or should be used for investment decisions.

Forward vs. Trailing Multiples

Should I use LTM or NTM multiples when spreading comps or talking about an investment?

Short answer: you should spread both. 

Let’s break down what a forward multiple is. A forward multiple is an assessment of value today based on the projected performance of a business. They are typically calculated on a ‘next twelve months’ basis or ‘NTM.’

An example: NTM P/E. The NTM P/E multiple takes today’s share price / the next twelve months EPS projection. Effectively, the NTM P/E multiple is a representation of how much we are paying today for $1 of earnings tomorrow.

Ok, onto trailing multiples. Trailing multiples are an assessment of value based on the last twelve months of performance. We will use the same metric as above, the P/E multiple, except we will be calculating the metric on an LTM basis.

The LTM P/E multiple takes today’s share price / the last twelve months of EPS.

So why do we need to look at NTM and LTM? It’s an art of seeing what the world did vs. what the world predicts and using that information to form your own view on the business.

Above, we spread the LTM and NTM P/E multiples of the largest semiconductor companies: Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Quickly, we can see that these companies trade wildly different from each other—which is a little unusual tbh. Typically, companies in the same industry trade similarly.

The next observation is that every company has a lower NTM P/E ratio relative to its LTM P/E ratio. This is a GOOD sign for the industry as it means that EPS for each of these businesses is expected to grow.

The final observation is to hone in on AMD specifically. We can see that AMD currently trades exponentially higher than Nvidia and TSMC, but is expected to trade tighter to Nvidia and TSMC on an NTM basis.

For us, this is a great jumping off point to do some further fundamental analysis to determine a). why AMD trades so high relative to peers and b). what needs to happen for AMD to trade tighter in the future?  

Going Forward:

If you run a club, we want to connect with you to prep your members for interview season. Please shoot us an email @[email protected], would love to make your club the most prepared on campus

Please reach out to us with any questions about recruiting or if you’re interested in meeting the team! ([email protected])

We are happy to chat, review resumes, or help set up a coaching session

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The Pulse

“The Pulse” #87