Corp Dev Opportunity

Hi all,

Just got an offer at a Corp Dev role in HCOL. Comp is 140k all-in and hours would be 45-55 per week. I really like the team and what the business does.

Not sure if I should stay in banking (low tier BB, decent group) and recruit to LMM buy-side or just take the opportunity at hand. Would appreciate your thoughts. Coming up on 2 years as an analyst.

4 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Given the lack of responses I can offer a perspective. Before I jump in, below are some questions that would influence my answer: 

  1. How much do you like banking? Any desire to stay? I ask because this could influence how attracted I am to the Corp Dev role.
  2. How seasoned is the M&A team? There is a big difference between working for a well oiled machine and one that has no clue how to get deals across the finish line. I have worked at both. One was for several years, one was for 6 months. This will be tough to diligence because the company I worked at that had no clue how to do M&A had just closed 2 >$100MM deals within the past year, so it certainly appeared like they knew what they were doing. You can tease this out by asking about who owns the bets and the acquisitions (business teams vs. Corp Dev), who drives the synergy bets, and who ultimately pounds the table when it comes time to present to committee. The more the business does, the better in my experience.
  3. How many deals do they close a year? How many do they look at? I have a hard time believing the hours are 45-55 for any team doing scale deals. My hours are 50 when its slow and closer to 70 when on a live deal, with hours getting worse when its 2+ deals. Then again, I look at scale deals. If you are working for a PE portco with sub 100M EV assets then maybe theres very limited modeling / synergy hypotheses / diligence required. I do understand a lot of folks claim to work 40ish hours in Corp Dev, but I question the quality and size of the assets theyre looking at
  4. What is the comp and career trajectory like? Can you see a path to Director? Is comp at the Director level >$300k all in? You may not be able to answer these questions, but good to think about. Also look at how quickly folks advance through the org. Some are Associates for 6 years due to limited upward mobility, some make it to the next rung within 1-2 years consistently. The former is tough, the latter is enticing.  
  5. What end market is the business in? What stage of the life cycle is your end market in? Growth and mature businesses have a lot of M&A. My business is in a mature market and for that reason I have a high degree of job security, a nice segway into my next question,
  6. What is the level of job security? Scale companies will always have a need for M&A. Sub scale assets often get acquired, and guess what, then you're part of the cost synergy line in someone else's model.
  7. Is it a PE Portco / Publicly traded Company / Privately Held? What size?

    I could rattle off another 5 or so questions but I think those should help you determine how vet the opportunity. I would also note that $140K all in for a HCOL city seems a bit tough after 2 years of BB IBD experience. I started with 145k all in in a L/M COL city with worse experience than yourself. 

 

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