Stifel was founded in St Louis in 1890. It's a large US wealth and investment banking group, and it owns KBW (Keefe, Bruyette & Woods), one of the best-known advisers to banks and financial firms. In Europe it operates as Stifel Europe, with a London office.
The KBW angle
If you're interested in how banks themselves are bought, sold and valued, KBW is one of the most specialised places to learn it. Financial institutions work is its own world: different valuation methods, lots of regulation. Mention it only if you genuinely find it interesting, because they'll test it.
On the CV
- For a financial institutions role: an economics or finance background, an interest in banking regulation, anything on how banks make money.
- For general banking: the usual deal work with numbers and modelling.