Treasury analyst or (hopefully) M&A?

I’m looking for some advice here. Basically, I have two routes for my future with my current company, both of which are realistically attainable due to my close contact with the CFO, reputation within the finance group, all that. Anyways.

(1) Treasury Analyst - this posting just came through the internal system this morning.

  • Perform daily reporting/analysis on cash/debt positions
  • Support implentation of cash mgmt banking agreements, and investment/portfolio analysis and reporting
  • Create cash flow forecasts/analysis (I already do this part with my current role)
  • Analyze/evaluate potential fin’l risks
  • Provide analysis/admin for insurance programs/coverage/claims mgmt, and corporate credit initiatives
  • Help with necessary analysis re: banking trans, debt/equity capital markets transactions, corp finance strategies
  • Assist with prep of quartely materials including internal & external reporting requirements

(2) Or I can stay in my current position and take a small gamble. It’s an official goal for the company next year to begin M&A work (buyside) as well as initiate market intelligence on our customers/competitors/macro, and the VP Operations, when he said it, said that it’ll be a task for our unit, the business analysts. A bonus to my current role is that we do pretty much all the financial analysis on our actual projects (profit projection on request for proposals, ad hoc cost analysis, project lookbacks) so I get a very good idea of what margins should look like in this industry, what the profit drivers are, things like that.

Ultimately I want to do equity research, so I’m leaning towards taking the gamble. Just looking for some tips/input on what you’d do in my position, and particularly if the treasury analyst role is even worth considering. It doesn’t sound exactly front office, but not back office either. Thoughts?

The second job is “M&A-in on the buyside”?

In my opinion, treasury is booooooring.

I’m kind of suspecting it would be boring… From what I can find, the only kind of investing/risk management we do is buy and sell from a selection of about a dozen bond offerings. No held for sale investments or anything like that.

My nigga, you’ve got a shot at M&A’in on the buyside! Go after it son!

Treasury is hit or miss. At the basic level you’re simply reconciling cash balances on the system to those in the bank. Glorified accounting crap. If you get into a F500 company you’re hedging currency risk, engaging transfer pricing, going long and short on commodities to attain your required inputs, capital construction, and so forth.

If it’s a financial house: treasury is mostly: ""simply reconciling cash balances on the system to those in the bank. Glorified accounting crap. “”

I did a summer internship in treasury, and I found it extremely boring. I spent much of that summer trying to do work for other departments – that’s probably why I didn’t get a full-time offer.

Its not a financial house, we’re an oilfield services company. Pretty sure I’ll be taking my chances on the m&a, after talking to the treasury guy a bit yesterday I realized its one of those small reward/hours of boredom things

What about treasury with a focus on securitisation reporting and - along the line - some debt-related reporting. I figure the exit opps from securitisation back office are zero, am I wrong?