LionTree has worst hours for investment bankers

LionTree
founder Aryeh Bourkoff

REUTERS/Brendan
McDermid

Investment banking is famous for imposing long hours on its
young workers. 

But one firm has hours that are really tough, even
for banking. 

It’s boutique advisory firm LionTree Advisors, whose
professionals worked on average 90 hours per week, according to
a
 report
 by
Wall Street Oasis, an online community for financial
professionals.

Co-founded by former UBS media investment banker Aryeh B. Bourkoff in 2012,
LionTree Advisors is well-known for working on high profile
transactions that are reshaping the telecom, tech, and media
landscape. This includes advising Charter on its attempt to by
Time Warner Cable, Snap on its initial public offering,
and Verizon on its acquisition of Internet
pioneer AOL.

The firm is known for its 
culture of openness and
a flat structure — few of its staff has formal job
titles and young bankers are encouraged to bring up transaction
ideas, according to a New York Times story.

A representative for LionTree Advisors did not respond to a
request for comment.

So-called boutique bands tend to have more grueling hours
than their bulge bracket counterparts, the report found. Young
workers at
tech and media boutique Allen & Company and
healthcare focused firm MTS Health Partners work an average of
87.5 hours per week each, according to the report.

Big U.S. investment banks such as Goldman Sachs (73.6
hours) and JP Morgan Chase (69.1 hours) are relatively less
intense and draining, among the 155 firms surveyed in the
study.

Banks generally have
put in measures to reduce the workload and stress of their junior
staff, such as requiring Saturdays be taken off, following
the 
death
 of
a Bank of America intern in 2013.

But bankers still put in much longer hours than typical
Americans who work an average of 34.5 hours per week, according
to July data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.