Hi everyone,
I know there are different threads on this, but if you were to buy ONE, just 1, book on Investment Banking, which one would you pick among these options?
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions
The Practitioner’s Guide to Investment Banking, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance
The art of M&A
Thanks.
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I'd like to know this as well.
If you've never worked at a bank, and you have never seen any of our models, spreadsheets, etc. these books will not give you much insight or and edge. Make sure you know the type of shit we ask during interviews cold, and when the time comes, you will need to buy these books.
But for the record, the practitioners guide is excellent.
Why not just spend some time at a bookstore and scan the books to see which you think will best answer your questions - if any. You may very well find that you can find most of the information you need by asking questions, reading web sites, and browsing the web. Your money may be better spent buying a guide that teaches you a lot of the technical specs, questions, analysis and fundamentals of the job - including modeling, etc, as this would probably be more useful on the job. If you know most of that already, then you should probably take a trip to the bookstore and check them out for yourself as there will probably be a ton of valid opinions/answers to this question, or you may not get much of a response at all.
IBanker www.BankonBanking.com Articles, News, Advice and More Break Into Investment Banking
"how to win friends and influence people" has helped me more than those three combined.
Technical books designed for anything other than interviews will not help you land a job in banking. There are much better uses for your time than to memorize complex formulas or trying to learn the ins and outs of deal processes. Like BankonBanking said, you're better off mastering all of the fundamentals. Think "a mile wide and an inch deep" rather than the other way around.
While I haven't read it, jackofalltrades offers interesting advice which is: Make sure you have the soft skills and can comfortable interact with people, things which will ultimately take you further than any technical book.
~~~~~~~~~~~ CompBanker
I think more than enough people (myself included) have frequently stressed the importance of networking and being a team player. The soft skills of the business are often (at least for many people) far harder to get a handle on than the hard skills.
IBanker www.BankonBanking.com Articles, News, Advice and More Break Into Investment Banking
So true. I'll be the first to admit that I find the soft skills much, much harder to get a grasp on and still have much to work on.
.
No interviewer is going to probe you beyond the basics in a technical guide like the one they have here on WSO. You will do yourself more harm by not knowing something simple, than you will yourself good by being able to explain in incredible depth one topic. Chances are they won't ask you to do it, so you will have wasted time that could have been spent studying something else.
NEVER lose your BlackBerry www.conveniencesoftware.com
there is such a thing as going over board. It might sound silly, but I tend to try to push candidates that I find are interested in the position, but have not gone all out in reading this site, technical guides, etc. While its difficult to gauge, this site and others promote a groupthink of sorts, and in many ways shapes the way that internship candidates and beginning analysts view the job. I find that those students that don't necessarily do this (typically from ivy/non-business majors) come in much more open minded and bring a much better dynamic to the team than kids that think they know everything without having stepped foot into the bullpen. All aspiring monkeys should take this into consideration. Look at your predecessors that have broken in. How much did they know? What was the difference between those that made it, and those that are now applying to law school? Do some research, and you'll likely find that it was not intelligence or how much they knew about the investment banking industry. I agree with the poster above that Carnegie's book is more likely to get you an offer than an investment banking guide. If students really have so much spare time, read some fucking newspapers. I don't need another kid telling me that telecom should be priced at a 13x ebitda multiple when they can't give me a basic overview of the players, trends, cap ex projects, and why you would use certain multiple range. Do not memorize. We will pick up on that, and ask you retarded questions until you have no longer memorized the answers to our questions. We want thinking abilities, not a memorized stock pitch.
My favorite of those three would be SCOOP books - The Practitioner’s Guide to Investment Banking, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance
Its straight forward, easy to understand and covers all of the relevant topics in IB. Its a bit expensive at $100 but I still use it as a desk reference
SCOOP books.
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions
I've been reading this during my down time at work, it's helpful. Really straightforward.
Not only that, but it comes with free full-blown examples of LBO, DCF, Comps, Preced; also, it comes with those analyses templates, so you can play around with the models yourself. They are formatted nicely.
I just got the SCOOP books, as I'm starting FT in M&A next week. Pretty good overview, and it goes pretty in depth on some of the technical things.
I'm using it as a review and a learning resource, but I can imagine it will come in handy in the future as reference.
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions
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