Perella Weinberg, or PWP, was founded in 2006 by Joseph Perella, who'd been a senior figure at Morgan Stanley, and Peter Weinberg, from Goldman. It's a smaller elite boutique than Evercore or Lazard, with a strong name in M&A and restructuring, and offices in New York, London and a few other cities.
Why people pick PWP
- Small teams with senior bankers close by. At a firm this size you work directly with partners much earlier than at a bulge bracket.
- Restructuring. Like several boutiques, PWP is well known for advising on restructurings. If that appeals, it's a real reason to apply.
- Less noise. PWP gets less attention on student forums than the bigger boutiques, so the applicant pool may be a little thinner [my impression, not a published figure].
What gets a CV through
PWP's undergraduate class is small, so the CV has to work hard:
- A finance internship with deal content and sizes.
- Technical evidence you'd be happy to be grilled on.
- Clean formatting. With a small team reading every CV, inconsistent dates and fonts are noticed.
If this would be your first finance role, I'd still apply, but put real effort into a boutique internship somewhere first. That line is what turns an application here into an interview.