IB to Equity Research

Interested to hear of any juniors who made the switch from IBD to ER- I'm an analyst 1 at a MM bank who is weighing it up.

For some context, my goal has always been either ER or a form of equity investing role. Initially went into m&a because I fell short of the job i wanted and started to feel some financial pressure.

My questions to you are:

(1) When did you start looking?

(2) Is it frowned upon if i jump after one year?

(3) What points about you were most scrutinised through the process? Was it modelling / writing / intellectual creativity?

(4) Is it worth trying to cross the chinese wall and network with analysts at my MM? Noting that compliance would be sitting in on every meeting

(5) Do you think i will struggle to move to BB research after working on deals in the 100-500m range? If yes, what can i do to address these concerns?

V grateful for all anecdotes and advice.

6 Comments
 
Most Helpful

I have several friends who made the jump and I would recommend jumping sooner than later, especially if you intend to stay in ER for at least a few years after landing it. Your big hurdle is convincing analysts that you like analyzing stocks over transactions. ER is a lot more about following a subset of companies & writing about them than pushing for a bunch of deals to happen.

My friends have succeeded in jumping as soon as 1-1.5 years. Networking within your bank may be tricky but it's also possible to pull this off if your IB team supports this; otherwise I recommend networking outside the bank.

Happy to talk more on this if you DM me

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Pretty much had the offer with 2 places but it fell through for reasons which were out of my control (e.g. no longer had the budget / did a 180 and went for someone with susbtantially more experience). I networked quite widely across IBD/ER/AM/HF and got close with ER, fell short for the aforementioned reasons; IBD came at the same time but just didn't fall through

 

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