French banks in Paris or in London ?

Mc5501:

Here is the situation :

I am French and I have to do 1 year of internship. I would like to get a summer in London at the end of it. I am in a top-ranked school and I have done 4 months of Private Equity in a respected Parisian investment company. Now I wonder what would be the next best move to get a decent summer in 2016

Should I apply to French banks (BNP and Société Générale) in Paris or in London for my first 6 months of internship? What will be the best in terms of developing skills and looking good on my resume? I assume that these banks will be more interested by my application because they know my school and because they might be interested in French speaking people

Salut Mc5501,

I worked for a small investment MM bank in Paris for a short time (as an American) and can say the following:

The London / Paris question really depends on where you want to be in the future. If you want to increase your marketability in the US or Asia, you should probably apply to London programs. Not only will your English skills improve but you will simply be exposed to larger deals.

At the end of the day, Paris is the financial center of France, but London is the financial center of Europe (even though it's not technically Europe, I know). France has a ton of large companies and is rich in SME, so there are plenty of deals to be done. That said, you will pretty much only work on deals with a French component and some deals in other French-speaking countries.

If you have no desire to work anywhere else, then choose Paris. If you want to make more money in your lifetime and want a chance to work on the largest deals, you should be applying to London or New York.

I will add one caveat: If you're just starting out and you don't have dreams of being CEO of Goldman Sachs, then Paris is perfectly acceptable. More or less, you're going to be a Powerpoint/data room monkey for the first year anyway.

Bref : France is a smaller market, and Paris-based bankers will only work on deals with French components for the most part. London and New York are far larger markets and will give you access to larger deals--all things equal. If you have stratospheric career aspirations it's best to be where the action is. If you plan on spending most of your career in France and don't need to rule the world then don't sweat it. Just be sure to apply to the better group.

Personally, I chose Paris because I love France, Parisians, and les Francaises. Spent over three years there. I left for New York a couple years ago because the economy is shit and there are 5X more jobs in the US. I made the right choice for me but I still miss it.

Merde