FBR Capital Markets Reviews

Pros

Opportunities for growth; reasonable amounts of time off.

Cons

Disparities between business units and operations expectations and compensation. Lack of communication across all areas.

Pros

Fellow employees are great people.

Cons

Management isonly worried about themselves, not the employees

Advice to Senior Management

Have some new voices offer ideas rather than keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Pros

Relatively Good Hours
Relatively Good Pay

Cons

Poor Leadership and Communication
Board of Directors Out of Touch
Company Management View FBR as Private Partnership, not Public Entity

Advice to Senior Management

Get New Blood and Proven Leaders

Pros

High energy - great research team with innovative ideas

Cons

Senior Management lacks the ingenuity and creativity to bring this company back to where it was in its former days - so much potential - very bad management

Advice to Senior Management

quit - just give the job to someone who knows what they're doing

Pros

Front line employees were top quality human beings!

Cons

Management lacked focus and regard for it's employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect the people that bring the $ in the door for the company!

Pros

YOu learn a lot very quickly, and you are very close to the end product of your work b/c teams are so small.

Cons

Upper levels of management are extremely entrenched, and marginally competent. Most senior managers would not last 10min at a bulge bracket, but for some reason FBR thinks it can compete with bulge brackets. Good luck....

Pros

Being located outside of New York City, FBR does allow for a better work/life balance than it's New York City based peers.

Cons

Not the greatest bank to work for. They used to be a very high profile boutique/middle market bank, but have since gone down hill. They've cut out holiday parties and have been consolidating office space. Went through several rounds of layoffs and morale is at an all time low. Losing a lot of talented people. Communication was abysmal with upper level and especially with HR.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to keep talent you have to treat them well.This is an industry where people will jump ship very easily if pay is not comparable. Improve on communication and what is going on with the company. Also, let go of the incompetent senior mgmt....too many senior level employees who don't add any value.

Pros

A small firm affords the potential for recognition of one's contributions by upper management... at least in theory.

Cons

Instability faced by diminished returns by the IB department is seriously impacting the viability of the firm.

Advice to Senior Management

Morale has deteriorated badly. Rather than confusing matters by diversifying into new lines of business (which they have no experience and consequently no success in), they should instead focus on rehabilitating what has brought them steady revenue in the past.

Pros

Quality Research
Small Firm with a family mentality
Lower cost of living in Arlington, VA vs. NYC
Growing into non-equity products

Cons

some senior management are incompetent relics of a different time on wall street
some institutional relationships are dead from poor deals and aggressive coverage in the past

Advice to Senior Management

Stop recognizing pump and dump old school stock brokers and start recognizing intelligence, original thought, and cautious relationship management . Aggressive sales methods can ruin relationships. It is not worth risking a long term relationship for an immediate payday.

Pros

Washington DC investment banking convenience

Cons

Subpar pay relative to comps

Advice to Senior Management

New CEO