Go from generalist M&A to infrastructure team - Tips
Hello everyone,As mentioned in the title, I would like to focus my IB career on energy or infrastructures in general
My background: I come from a non target university in France, and live in Europe. Managed to do 2 internships in M&A including one at a top French bank before joining as a graduate analyst in another bank. In this bank I'll rotate for a year between M&A execution, ECM, and origination. The M&A team is involved in energy deals, on which I get to work but it's not its core sector. I love it and would love to mainly work on those kind of deals in the future.
Hence my questions:
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is it 'too late' to transition to a team (therefore in a different bank) that is very different from the typical generalist team? (After I finish the program next year)
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If not, what would you recommend me to do to improve my odds?
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Should I stay in my team for my analyst years and move as an associate?
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Should I consider doing a 2nd master degree from prestigious university? I'm already 24
I plan on staying in Europe as getting sponsored to work in the US/Canada seems hard but opened to move anywhere in the region.
Many thanks in advance for your help.
Hi Analyst 1 in IB-M&A, any of these discussions helpful:
More suggestions...
Hope that helps.
Bump
Bump and do you think Europe care much about age?
No I agree with you. My concern was more delaying my junior years until my early 30s by which I would hope to have a slightly more balanced life. Thank you :)
Whatever you do mate, steer clear of Agentis Infra (Toronto, Vancouver, London)
Why infra lollll so technical, boring and not commercial…
B-school would not be necessary as you come with a generalist background. Not the best job market right now so would recommend waiting it out, then network with infra bankers as much as possible to lateral
Thanks for your message. My main concern was being too generalist and a less relevant hire which you did not seem to see as a strong issue. In any case given the market I plan on sticking around for my analyst 2 year and see where this goes.
In principle, I think it's definitely doable if you have some sort of experience in the sector already (maybe couple of live deals, not necessarily closed). You could in theory move as an associate as well however, this might require more in terms of sector experience. Granted, the market at the moment is in pretty bad shape for any sort of lateral movement so I'd expect this to be tough for now / as long as the market stays in bad shape.
Hi and thanks a lot for your reply! Indeed was involved in 4 projects (naturals resources, utilities and oil&gas) this year, hopefully will keep the same exposure in the coming months. Would you say that market conditions remain the same even for this industry? At my bank our group has been closing more deals than any other teams and remains dynamic on hiring. Might be an isolated case.
Thanks again
I have no view on these sectors specifically but the market is bad overall, yes. Glad to hear your team / bank is doing well and you're getting good experience but what I see generally for lateral hires across the street is not encouraging. I was recently made redundant from an EB so exploring options now and can say with certainty that the state of the market is far from ideal, so you might want to factor that in. I'm close to get an offer from another bank (fingers crossed) for a very targeted role which for various reasons the bank decided not to fill internally (they could) but look externally so you might get lucky this way, but you are really looking for opportunistic openings at this point if anything.
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