Companies doing the most exciting work in corp dev?

Probably large companies that are relatively acquisitive, interesting industry, smart people. Interested to get people's opinions on this.

My list:

Amazon Apple Google Disney Uber AT&T/Time Warner Liberty Media

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A lot of the best corp dev roles are at companies that the average person hasn't heard of. While it may seem cool to work at some of these household name tech companies, many don't actually do a ton of acquisitions. Sure they may look at a bunch of stuff, but they'll likely only do a significant deal every few years, so your experience won't be the best if you are looking for heavy deal flow.

Instead, take a look at some of the industrial conglomerates / media holding companies / large-cap healthcare companies with strong balance sheets, depending on your interests. Many of these companies either are actively looking to diversify and revamp their business because their legacy business is declining (e.g., GE, some of the media conglomerates, Dell) or they are looking to consolidate their industry / buy growth (e.g., UnitedHealth, Danaher, random life sciences/pharma companies). At all of these you'll have exposure to a broad range of transaction and investment types. Downside is, many of these roles are located in the suburbs outside a major city...

 

Corp Dev comp is a crap shoot as has been discussed many times on this site. Analyst comp would likely be on par with an FP&A analyst, give or take a few $k.

I would also say that starting out in Corp Dev can be a double-edged sword. It can be a great work/life balance, and you can get some great experience depending on the company. However, moving up the ladder is a much slower process, and it will take a lot more work to get the good exit opps.

 

I'm in Healthcare Tech and we have a strong balance sheet. I would say we do look at a lot of interesting companies with a tech angle (AI, NLP, CAC etc.) and lately a lot of interesting early stage companies, which is pretty neat - just not very acquisitive, which has been my frustration.

I would think doing tuck-in deals all the time would get pretty boring.

 

I would say one of the strongest corp dev teams in at united health group. From my understanding, they usually do multiple 3B+ deals a year. In total, it’s typical for them to 15-20B in acquisitions a year.

 

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