Is FP&A corporate finance?
As the title states.
If it is, I got an FP&A intern offer from a midsize IT company (NYSE). Should I take it? I'm not looking to be an investment banker, but possibly looking for a CF role in Big 4 or F500.
Or should I just go to AIG (another summer internship offer)?
Personally, I think that FP&A becomes really interesting when the company you're working at has a physical product (in the IT world can be semiconductors). This means that there's an entire production process that has to be managed from a financial perspective.
If the company operates in a SaaS environment, I find that stuff like margins (and the resulting planning) are slapped on based on industry practices ("70% feels about right") rather than supply-chain based math, which admittedly is more scrupulous but at the same time more precise.
Regardless, good luck. FP&A is not given as much appreciation as it should in my opinion.
Depends what the AIG role is. On htis board, most Corp Fin roles, including FP&A would be considered back office. Get over that part. It's a meaningless description. In every business there are two businesses going on; the working on the actual product or service line (i.e doing deals) , and the running of the business. One can't exist without the other. You could make an argument that the CFO is "backoffice" but my two buddies that are F500 CFOs nake a couple mil a yr and will do way better than most bankers ever realize. One started in B4 audit and the other in FP&A . Once the B4 audit guy moved to industry, they both worked their way up the Finance organization, obtained top MBA, etc. Neither have ever been in a revenue producing role. Took between 15-20 yrs.
I think FP&A is a great place to start. Get a lot of modeling experience. In a few yrs get some M&A experience, etc.
If you're looking at CFO role as your ultimate goal in life. FP&A is a great place to start.
I first congratulate you to land the internship in such trying times.
I also like to highlight the state of the risk and turbulence of environment we are currently in, would bring your mind to appreciate any job even if its some back office work. Then again, I would be nothing short of enthusiastically happy for you if you have insanely meaningful work in your internship. That's a luck game, some do, some don't.
Coming back to your question, I would agree with most of comments here, take the FP&A role. If these 2 are your only options. (The elaboration of why my answer is so simple is as per below)
Just further advice for maybe after this internship, in case you might be thinking next steps after this internship. (who knows, you might need to think). Corporate finance is a large umbrella term with highly varied work and different job descriptions even if they have the same work title. The common breakdowns are:
1) Treasury (they handle cash) 2) FP&A (P&L related. The big bottom-line. Sometimes they have a hybrid of strategic or corporate development roles) 3) Controllership (Balance sheet, reporting related. Sometimes the company's so small or the controller is super capable in bird's eye view, the controller might be doing risk, treasury as well as corporate finance related work) 4) Corporate Finance (per title strictly). This often occurs around Asia and Australia as 1 commentator mentioned. They might be purely be working on funding, management & allocation of the funding and investment of the funding. N sometimes, corporate development/corporate strategy gets to be called corporate finance in these region. 5) A Catch all FINANCE MANAGER title that covers, reporting, risk, fund management, treasury, fundraising, P&L, Balance sheet. Killer role but common as well.
So its really really annoying. I know. But its a catch all term, with highly varied, non-homogenous work that differs across region & company structure set-up. So its really difficult to actually pin-point, "which is a better place to start if I wanted to be in corporate finance". Much better advice would be given to you from the community, if you mention strictly specific, perhaps what type of work environment, target compensation, work description and area of corporate finance is where you are looking for.
In terms of prestige, go for consulting (MBB) & IB roles. These guy's names are so big. That people see the name they tremble and go nuts abit. Its just the way the world works. Big 4 also carries prestige but for a different focus in a different arena (generally better not discussed here in the open haha xD).
But yes, have an awesome internship! =)