Hi I will be giving an interview next week for the following profile: Analysts are encouraged to assume significant responsibility and support the day-to-day activities of the desk. The role offers the analyst an opportunity to develop an expertise in the equity product, as well as investment banking in general. Initial activities will include: - Assisting in the origination and execution of equity and equity-linked transactions - Creating pitch books - Performing analysis of precedent transactions including structure, valuation, and price performance - Maintaining weekly databases / marketing materials - Creating market commentary - Regular market condition updates for each industry vertical - Analyzing clients’ shareholder bases - Assisting in investor targeting - Ad-hoc projects Any suggestions on how good this role is and how close it is to front office. Also, what kind of questions should i expect. I dont have a lot to bring in terms of relevant work experience here, but having cleared L2, i am confident about theory. The CBoK focusses a lot on valuation though which apparently makes up a very small part of the profile above.
stanford?
Yeah… i plan to apply there sometime too… right now its just the job though…
I have no experience in IB, but I keep hearing about things like pitch books (which this job says you will assist with). I assume pitch books are for newly issued stock or debt, and it’s a statement about what a company does and why the new issues of security X will be the hottest thing since toasted sliced bread. Is that correct?
Did someone say Monkey Business? Stay away from pitch books. Why not apply for a genunine equity research position?
I meant Stanford Financial… they have a role that sounds just like the one mentioned above.
bchadwick, that is about all i know myself, apart from maybe that its on really high quality paper. ph, i am looking at research profiles too… but i will just go with whatever decent comes to me first. About pitch books, i agree it wont be the biggest education i’ll get, i would be interested in gaining experience in origination, valuation and structuring though. gb, nope. Its a BB offering a position in Asia.
sounds like a fo role…
if its an analyst position for an IB then throw everything out with window aside from pitchbooks…
Analysts are encouraged to assume significant responsibility and support the day-to-day activities of the desk. TRANSLATION: We want you to do the things that we don’t want to do, and we want you to be proactive about it. You should be prepared to do things we don’t even know we don’t want to do before we don’t know we don’t want to do those things. This is critical to your success at our firm. Your value is directly tied to how well you do things we don’t want to do, though we plan to take credit for your work and direct any errors back to you (even if we make the error or provide poorly worded instructions that result in the error). This will keep you in your place. The role offers the analyst an opportunity to develop an expertise in the equity product, as well as investment banking in general. And by expertise, we mean you will be the best investment-banker-copy-boy in our firm. We will come to you with nitpicky and annoying requests about formating, scanning documents, etc. A lot of these requests. Initial activities will include: - Assisting in the origination and execution of equity and equity-linked transactions This is sufficiently ambiguous to sound interesting. It may involve sending emails to people or it may be interesting (probably not). - Creating pitch books See above regarding formating and copying. - Performing analysis of precedent transactions including structure, valuation, and price performance You will manually update prices and other data into a spreadsheet that we have created. - Maintaining weekly databases / marketing materials Correct our grammar, b!tch. - Creating market commentary This has potential but don’t expect much. - Regular market condition updates for each industry vertical Could have potential, see above regarding expectations. - Analyzing clients’ shareholder bases Please use our server to look up data regarding client’s shareholder bases. Collect data and deliver to us. - Assisting in investor targeting This could mean a lot of things. - Ad-hoc projects Your job is to do whatever we don’t want to do. Enjoy! Seriously, this looks like a “fake” front office job. It could lead to something better, though, depending on the firm (BE VERY CLEAR ABOUT THIS IF YOU DECIDE TO TAKE THE JOB AND TRY TO GET IT IN WRITING). Sounds almost purely administrative to me. It’s still better than a back office job either way though since at least you will be exposed to front office stuff. Take it if you have nothing else to go with.
The job will probably suck, but I say go for it. This could lead to a great job in the future. As for Pitch books, that means you make copies and then fix their mistakes.
Where is being the bitch not the norm when you start off in IB?? And even more broadly, you are there to do whatever they don’t want to in WHATEVER career path you first start out in. I currently work for an oilfield services firm as an analyst, been here about a year…you think i’m not my boss’ grunt?
Sounds to me like equity capital markets for an IB.
Right now, we are all @*&$$@ grunts paying dues.
enpassant- I was offered a job with almost identical job description. It seems like ibankers are pretty open in that they hate their job and would rather be in research. However IB pays just enough for them to stick with it (which is a lot). I think putting in the “dues” for 2 years in IB is a smart thing to do. smart for your future b/c it will give you access to good grad schools such as stanford…and a lot of the most desired companies finance depts. want only ex-ibankers…like google, or mckinsey…
Research isnt any joyful walk in the park either…