What Are Investment Banks Searching For?

What better way to learn about investment bankers’ priorities and interests than their search history?

We took a look at bankers’ top search queries on Axial over the past six months. What we found reflects interesting trends about sub-sectors and geographical regions on the mind of today’s deal professionals.

Unsurprisingly, investor-related terms made up several of the top 10 searches. “Family office” claimed the number one spot, perhaps a reflection of the increase in family offices acting as direct investors and/or the growing number of CEOs looking for stakeholders with longer investment horizons and other characteristics.

“Healthcare” landed the number two spot. As we’ve written before, the industry is seeing increasing consolidation thanks to evolving regulations and other factors.

1. Family office
2. Healthcare
3. Financial services investors
4. Wireless Telecommunications Services
5. Trucking
6. Construction
7. Private Equity Firm
8. Growth Equity Investors
9. Movies & Entertainment
10. Food

California, New York, and Texas took the cake when it came to location searches.

11. Building Products
12. New York, NY
13. Technology
14. Aviation
15. Technology
16. California
17. Agriculture
18. Texas
19. Automotive
20. Early stage investors

Despite a lackluster Q1, manufacturing was still on bankers’ mind. Home healthcare, too, occupied attention, as an aging population and a shifting approach to population management in the healthcare industry encourages providers to move patients from more costly hospital settings.

Other interesting niches including packaged foods & meats and HVAC services.

21. Home care
22. Manufacturing
23. Asset-based
24. Electrical contractors
25. SaaS
26. Packaged Foods & Meats
27. Real Estate
28. Railroad
29. Boutique investment bank
30. HVAC

As the SEC adopts new rules for crowdfunding, searches for “individual accredited investors” also made the top 50 list.

31. Private placement firms
32. Illinois
33. Broker dealers
34. Individual accredited investors
35. Behavioral health
36. Software
37. Restaurant
38. Medical device
39. Staffing
40. Hotel

Finally, niche searches like injection molding, dental services, and real estate development rounded out the list.

41. Dental
42. Ecommerce
43. Injection molding
44. Boston, MA
45. Houston, TX
46. Aerospace & Defense
47. Real Estate Development
48. Equity
49. Funding
50. Military Training