|
EchoBase posted:This looks to be a good thread. Can people who are working in banking give some day-in-the-life summaries of what they do, preferably with less jargon and acronyms? I'm curious to see what you really do all day in various types of jobs. Not sure if you are still reading, but I'm an managing director with a boutique tech focused M&A shop. Here's a quick version of today: - was supposed to fly out today to take a client (sell side) to visit a buyer in the midwest, they rescheduled late last night (sunday) to next week because of the blizzard warning. - MD meeting...talk about deals other partner stuff - group meeting ...talk about deals in process with the junior guys - 90 minutes of misc. phone calls: calmed down the client who had the meeting reschedule due to weather, talked about strategy with other buyers and valuations, where and when it would likely sell, how he should manage his board.....made several calls to arrange meetings with prospective buyers for another company I am selling (these are calls to people I know at the buyers) - reviewed an information memorandum prepared by an associate over the weekend on another company we are selling (this is the document we use to inform potential acquirers about the business), edited directly, passed it back to him for some other changes - 90 minute conference call on another company we are selling that is in the middle of drafting definitive purchase and sale documents (final stages of M&A before it is announced). This call was only our side (our counsel, my client's CEO and a board member on the M&A committee, our CFO, two of us from my group). Reviewed redlines from the other side, discussed 10-20 issues and came up with positions. Our counsel will draft and redistribute to the whole group for review before we turn it to the other side hopefully within 48 hrs of getting it from them - Rescheduled some other lunches and meetings that the snow meeting reschedule screwed up (two with PE guys, one with a lawyer, one with a CEO of a company I want to sell) - Discussed a term sheet on an offer we are about to make to a company where we are representing a large public buyer with the corp dev guys at that buyer ...hmm...probably some stuff/calls I missed, but it's 3pm... I'll leave at like 6:15pm, put my kids to bed, and work again around 9-10 probably, maybe later.. That seemed to be rambling, but hopefully helpful.
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2011 23:33
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:56 |
|
|
Its Miller Time posted:What would you say are the main ways you spend time driving in new business? How would you say you divide your time between managing the staff and progress of the work in your office, talking with the existing clients, and soliciting new ones? Holy poo poo is this a good question. It is nearly impossible to balance. Most of my deals (origination) come from networking with boardmembers/investors, ex-CEOs, other executives that I've sold or bought companies for in the past. I'll also usually have a few companies in a few spaces I just like, that I'll work an introduction to and then call and discuss their space on occasion...then when it's time for a transaction, hopefully my industry knowledge proves to be something they want on their team. The challenge with finding new deals is balancing time - execution in M&A can be totally consuming...you will disappear into a black whole a few weeks before sign/announce on an existing deal and find your pipeline very cold when you surface. We work on smaller deals, so I am typically live on 6 at a time or so...while chasing others when I have time.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2011 00:10
|
|
|
Mandalay posted:Is there literally nothing to work on during this time, or are you doing long-term projects? I find it hard to believe that you can work 14 hours a day at peak efficiency for a sustained period of time. You can. Longer...your brain and body adapt after years of it. I know this sounds sick, but it is true. Btw, I suspect most analysts don't have a lot of down time...it happens but it is infrequent. The volatility of that is a killer (ie the sustained hours aren't as bad in the long run as the going from crazy hours to all the sudden nothing).. Mr. WTF fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Feb 16, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2011 00:12
|
|
|
Someone brought up basics in interview questions, here's one I always ask in case it helps. It's incredibly easy, but I'm sure a lot of M&A guys ask it, and I throw people out (politely) if they miss it... If I were to give you two of the primary financial statements and ask you to create the third, which two would you take and which would you create? just realized this was so easy I didn't post the answer...so I usually say I ask it because I want to understand their thinking, but there is only one right answer which is to create the cashflow. The other two have things you can't derive. Mr. WTF fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Feb 16, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2011 00:14
|
|
|
Its Miller Time posted:I don't think this is a good question. Everyone who answers this right read and memorized the answer in an interview guide, this question is in every one. No kid is actually going to sit there and realize all by himself in those 20 seconds that you can take the balance sheet and income statement and recreate cash flows. The only reasonable explanation would be if he/she learned this in his/her accounting class, I know I was able to answer this because a homework assignment had been to actually do this. To me questions like this test if you did your homework and gave the interview the necessary amount of preparation, which will translate to how well you'll do your job. Actually, out of context you are correct, but I'll ask follow ups to understand how well they understand how the financials work together. Give them business scenarios and ask them what they'd expect to see in the financials as a result.... or give them the type of company, tell them deferred revenue is extremely high vs similar companies and ask them for a few guesses as to why that might be happening in this company. The goal is both to see if they've built lots of 3 statement functional models in excel, and to see how good they are at determining what is happening in a business by looking at the financials.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2011 18:37
|
|
|
Woobles2121 posted:
That's kind of funny. I've got 10 textbooks still sitting in my office from undergrad and grad school (mostly the latter), and I've probably looked at them collectively maybe 4 times - probably all when I was an analyst. I should get rid of them (I've been out awhile).
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2011 23:39
|
|
|
Socialism posted:I know absolutely nothing about owning a sports team, but I would guess that estimating depreciation doesn't matter because I can't imagine what a sports team might have that actually incurs material depreciation cost. (Unless they own a stadium?) I'd imagine most cost they incur are expensed rather than capitalised. For amortisation, taking a wild stab in the dark, you can estimate the value of the team's brand/intangible assets (maybe through precedent transactions when teams have been bought/sold) and go from there. I'd agree with this. Depreciation is effectively a measure of fixed asset requirements amortized over time - while I can see things like buses, equipment, training gear, fans, gatorade all that poo poo, it still seems like a rounding error vs. the kind of P&Ls you are talking about. His friend was right that depreciation is often buried in expenses or COGS, so you have to figure it out or guess at it to get to EBITDA, but it doesn't seem like a material thing ina sports team. (I've never seen an NFL P&L so all of this is wild speculation)..
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2011 17:59
|
|
|
aki posted:I've just interviewed with a markets department at larger bank (Scandinavia) for an entry-level position. Now, I'm not really comfortable with IB jargon yet, so I'm wondering; is what is done in a capital markets or debt capital markets department generally denoted investment banking? What is the dominant sector of the IB industry? One more vote, but in my view the debt capital markets work depends a lot on the specifics of what you are doing. That gets pretty close to more boring commercial banking work unless you are doing aggressive stuff. But even on the aggressive stuff you are much more often dealing with the CFO or treasurer at the client vs the CEO and board (ie M&A, equity offerings). Not always true, but moreso the case in general I think than ECM or M&A. Ironically I'd also tell you given your interest in analysis...debt is the best place to be to do innovative financial structuring.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2011 19:29
|
|
|
PurePerfection posted:
...man I so wish there were more women in banking. It is an industry that could absolutely use the balance and perspective provided by both genders. Of the 15 years I've been in it (M&A), I've probably seen about 1-5% women at my firm, excluding assistants. It is a serious problem.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2011 17:56
|
|
|
Dreaming Android posted:I've got an interview with the Australian office (Sydney) of a mid-market, international investment bank in just over a week for advisory. If they do a lot of M&A (I'm guessing since you said advisory), they'll be mostly interested in how well you understand businesses - especially in the verticals they are good in. ..ie, do you get the leverage importance/scale possibilities of a high gross margin, how do mature EBITDA positive businesses trade vs. faster growing businesses, recurring revenue and it's impact on leverage...stuff like that. One way I get to this is to ask candidates to talk about a particular business they are familiar with and tell me why it would make an attractive M&A candidate and to who...and why it would be ugly as well. I also ask some simple technical questions which anyone would get if they did that kind of homework before. Other than that though, I just talk to them and look for raw intelligence and desire...and would I want to work long hours with them personality wise. The younger they are, the more those two raw characteristics are important (to me) vs. existing plug and play knowledge. Hope this helps a bit..
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2011 17:55
|
|
|
flyingfoggy posted:Anyone know what kind of finance-related things I should know for an interview for an analyst-level internship with a VC firm? I'm sure the modeling is very simple compared to actual finance jobs, but all my past internships have been in tech/biz dev so I need to figure out what I should focus on relearning. We work with lots of VC firms...they'll be interested that you have sound financial basics and excel skills, but they'll probably also be much more interested in your knowledge of the space (ie, tech wise, SaaS software companies, semiconductors, social gaming business models, etc) that they invest in.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2011 22:57
|
|
|
stfuDonny posted:Does anyone in this thread work in the Bay Area? I'd love to pick someone's brain on the lay of the land, get some advice. Yeah...I'm an MD at an all tech M&A boutique..we're in the top 5 every year in NUMBER of deals done..not size, we do $20M-$400M deal sizes...PM me, or go ahead and ask here. We are in the bay area..
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2011 22:26
|
|
|
Halisnacks posted:This post might be out of place, but I just read and loved Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money and am wondering if any of you i-banker types could recommend some other must-read books (whether they are course or popular texts) about the history of finance, investment banking, etc. I found 'when genius failed' about the collapse of LTCM (Long Term Capital Management I think it was called)...to be a fascinating story and book...
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2011 22:14
|
|
|
Leo posted:Any advice as to asking for an extension on an offer deadline? They gave me three weeks but I'm also simultaneously hearing back from several other places about a week after that. I'm an MD at a mid market tech firm, and I agree with whoever here said call them. Try and get a principal too who liked you, not the recruiter who has been told don't accept any changes on the dates. The problem is, they also have probably 3 candidates they like slightly less than you for that job. If I really liked someone and they called and I thought I still had a good shot at getting them, I would give them a little more time. But if the other candidates were great and it was tight, I'd skip it and go to the next guy because inevitably when we hire we do it weeks later than we should have. I'd go to the welcome day, but explain your situation before they buy you the ticket.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2011 23:06
|
|
|
Thoogsby posted:Banks hire non-target students, you'll just have to work harder for the opportunity which it sounds like you're doing. Network Network Network. I'm an MD at a mid market tech M&A shop and this is right. Target schools for non-bulge is just kind of a filtering mechanism, and an admittedly lovely one, but the only one really, to sort through resumes. Education is certainly important, just happens that it's probably more important to the HR people/screeners than the bankers.. For what it's worth ..I started and sold a company early on, but went to a decent but non-ivy school for both under grad and grad... that's my vote at least.. Mr. WTF fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Jan 20, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2012 00:36
|
|
|
air- posted:Your other reply said "it depends on what you did in banking," so that said to me that I should give detail on my prior experience. Appreciate your responses, they really have helped a lot. Thank you! For what it's worth, I kind of think about fund of fund investors more as a working at a mutual fund than a PE firm. PE firms invest (many times outright acquire) and restructure/manage companies to create value. Fund of funds guys just invest in existing PE funds and kind of allocate based on returns/risk. Not that what you are considering won't be a great gig, just that risk allocation, portfolio modeling, etc will be more important than company valuation and LBO modeling. There's also less comp but probably more stability in fund of funds gigs.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2012 18:27
|
|
|
Buckhead posted:I have an interview coming up with a small real estate firm as an analyst. My financial knowledge would be a weakness - what should I crash course on to bring up during the interview? I know IRR, NPV and amortization, and have a pretty good grasp on basic accounting and business matters. I'm pretty good at math, but finance just isn't in my education background. I realize I'm a long shot for this position, but anything that would help my candidacy - even somewhat superficially - I'll take. I used to do commercial RE...look up and understand the terms FFO (funds from operations), Cap rates (basically cash on cash yield) and NOI. As a vertical it's heavy on debt, weird amortization and financials that are effectively the same as operating companies but they rely on slightly different measurements because of what is meaningful when looking at those kind of assets. For example, public comps for REITs are often expressed in FFO multiples, and when they talk on buying a building, as overly simplistic as it is, they'll talk about going-in cap rates. You might want to look into things like defeasance and securitization too, although that's probably too specific given it's an interview.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2012 19:36
|
|
|
fougera posted:Sounds like a good time to talk about working with little to no sleep, any advice on surviving? Chewing gum wakes you up somewhat, and too much caffeine probably backfires. This is a sad thing, but you your body will adapt. Back when I was doing 100 hr weeks regularly, yes you feel like a zombie, but you are surprisingly productive once your body adapts to the schedule. Exercise when you can and eat well...that's about it...and don't over use energy drinks/caffeine.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2012 19:25
|
|
|
Its Miller Time posted:Everyone too busy working? I need a black briefcase recommendation. Coach's stuff is awesome...I prefer nice messenger bags. Kind of pricey though.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2012 18:10
|
|
|
Disco Dickdog posted:I have (tentatively) lined up an internship working for a British commercial bank, in London, for 12 weeks, starting in September I have been told I will be working directly under the CFO, and with the investment bankers, on the IPO. Get the CFO to believe you should be collaborative with the bankers in building the pricing models for the offering. Build out a model, or work from the bankers model on the impacts of where you might price/what you might raise on total capitalization and the resulting impact on the bank and its lending. This will get you close to the bankers and also will be valuable experience. That's my vote.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 27, 2012 20:31
|
|
|
Smerdyakov posted:Ok, that answers my questions pretty fully, and the link is helpful! Yeah the problem isn't that what you have done isn't impressive, it is. Making 2-3x the S&P for three years and consistently adding to your track record is impressive, there is no question. It's just that the asset management gigs you are thinking about are hyper competitive, so there will be other guys interviewing that have your track record and also have a great school and built the track record at an institution... I do think with good networking though you could parlay that into a job with a small asset manager and then move up to a larger one based on what you do there.
|
|
#
¿
May 7, 2012 18:32
|
|
|
fougera posted:IBD: Tech, Healthcare, M&A Silicon Valley isn't satellite anything other than a few less people in the office - especially if you are doing tech M&A
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2012 23:56
|
|
|
Thoogsby posted:I might have made this up in my mind but did we have someone in here working in Real Estate IB? If so, I would love to talk to you. Hey Thoogsby - I'm not in RE IB...but I started and sold a commercial office real estate company a while back and just recently got off the board of another one - so familiar with REITs, securitizations, working with bankers as a principal. Now I do tech IB. Not sure if this helps. I'm not well versed in RE IB as a job.
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2012 18:00
|
|
|
bhaltair posted:I figure this is best place to post this question. I'm not in investment banking, but rather valuation advisory at one of the big four. I spend most of my day building out and tweaking models and the majority of my time is spent analyzing, formatting, or trying to make sense of data clients send us. My degree and background is purely business/finance but realize that having a sound background in building macros (more specifically mastering visual basic) would make my job that much easier, plus I think it'd be a valuable skill to have in the industry. I am looking to start dabbling into them but don't really know where a good place to start is. Has anyone had experience in this area with a similar background as mine? Any tips? I work in M&A...and don't do tons of modeling these days, but I learned macros and VB basically by recording macros (starting with backsolving for circular stuff automatically, etc), and then just viewing the code and understanding simple things...named ranges instead of cells to allow insertion without breaking the macro, etc....the more code you review after recording..pretty soon you'll be able to code macros from scratch. This will probably cover everything you want to do until you are making database calls, etc.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2012 19:38
|
|
|
Oliax posted:Clearly he's still interested so that's good news. Here's the thing to keep in mind about "accounting" from an M&A perspective. M&A guys get paid if a deal happens, that's it. No deal, no paycheck. BB bankers get a fee on the transaction, PE / VC guys may get some kind of deal fee, but they really get paid 3-10 years from now when they sell the company. All of them care about accounting only in as much as how they deal they are thinking of doing will affect the earnings number they can report, and the companies cash flows (so that is doesn't go bankrupt before they can sell it). You do not need to know accounting at the level that an accountant actually putting the company's books together would. Just one piece of color here...I'm an M&A guy, and accounting plays a huge role in M&A unfortunately. I loving hate accounting, but in terms of getting deals done / negotiating deals and for the right price (PE guys as well going in), accounting knowledge is critical. Your point is valid about not needing to be as deep as actually preparing books, but there are a lot of areas where it can make an enormous difference in negotiating and structuring a deal - off the top of my head just to be a little constructive - revenue recognition, COGS, deferred revenue, comp expense (and related earnout structuring), goodwill, etc. Mr. WTF fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Nov 27, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2012 01:03
|
|
|
crazypeltast52 posted:Thanks for the explanation! Do we have a thread here for non-house real estate, or is this the thread I should post about this going forward? I'm probably way too late here - I work in M&A in tech right now, but I actually started a commercial office REIT we filed to take public and then sold to HRPT...who spun it off - still trades as GOV to this day. You are probably already familiar with this, but get comfortable speaking in terms of cap rates (which is just cash on cash annual yield - ie if something trades at an 8 cap, that's the NOI divided by 8% = the price they are speaking about)..riskier the higher the cap obviously. Also get familiar with both NOI and FFO (funds from operations)...this is the RE version of EBITDA basically. Probably all stuff you know from reading. Then stuff like tenant rollover, any 'samestore' growth or built in inflators in leases...credit quality of tenants and how it relates to leverage access (and rates of debt)..then deductions like maintenance reserves (basically you charge the cashflow like .20 psf for when someone takes a poo poo in the HVAC and you have to replace it...you just don't know when things will break). Ok that was a bit rambling but maybe helpful? Mr. WTF fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Feb 8, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 8, 2013 01:09
|
|
|
crazypeltast52 posted:It's one of the big firms, JLL/CBRE/Colliers/CushmanWakefield, so it will probably be multi-family, office, industrial and retail. I know retail sales kickers can exist past a certain sales per square foot threshold to align the retail leasing manager's interests with those of the tenant. Presumably someone like Apple would be able to say no to that in a contract, but someone with less clout would be stuck with it? Do Apple stores have the same influence as anchors in terms of concessions? The pecuniary interests of the owners, managers and tenants are all going to be important here, so there's going to be a huge "it depends" hanging over all that, but does it sound like I'm starting to think like a real estate guy? You sound pretty good to a commercial office guy who hasn't been in it heavily for 10+ years...haha. I think you are in good shape. And yes to your question around net-triplenet leases.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2013 21:52
|
|
|
tolerabletariff posted:I've actually never paid more than $850 for a suit, maybe $1000 all-in with tailoring. You should buy some long sleeve suits.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2013 21:24
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:56 |
|
|
semicolonsrock posted:Made it to final round for an M&A focused i-bank! I work as an MD at an M&A focused bank...pure tech though, but I'll tell you what we'd be thinking at that stage: - Can I spend time on the road with this guy without being annoyed (ie, cultural fit) - M&A is pretty balance sheet focused...so accounting wise I'd expect associates and up to be pretty strong on things like deferred revenue, taxes, rev rec in general, debt structures and things like that. Definitely a clean understanding of how the three primary financial statements work together. - For verticals we focus on (we are just tech) I'd expect them to be able to speak intelligently about the business models of some of the major players - maybe pick a big private company and ask them how they'd value it. - Then some case study stuff if you haven't gotten it already (which is kind of like bullet 3 above)... That's all I can think of offhand...but good luck. I am really partial to M&A in terms of it just being a fundamentally interesting business...hope it goes well.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2013 19:38
|
|
