Advice needed: How to position ABL experience to lateral for IB?

Background: 1.5 yrs in ABL at a BB covering a variety of industries: manufacturing, distribution, materials, consumer products, etc. mainly with sub-investment grade/distressed companies. Non-target; sub 3.7 GPA.

Any advice on how to position this experience to lateral into a 1st year IB analyst role? Is another BB/EB possible or is MM more likely?

My current responsibilities include:

  • Underwriting various transactions (proposed M&A's, restructures, divestitures, etc.) by evaluating different credit metrics (leverage, FCCR, debt capacity). Modeling is not terribly advanced (mainly cash-flow modeling w/ no need to build out 3-statement models for the most part).

  • Supporting managers with deal execution/documentation (due diligence, ad-hoc analyses, running requisite internal/regulatory-required processes), as well as executing amendments (i.e. credit facility increases/decreases, etc.)

  • Portfolio monitoring (a.k.a. interim write-ups/reviews, reviewing financials as they come in, addressing tripped covenants & hopping on the phone/scheduling F2F meetings with clients to address liquidity issues/existing & anticipated problems)

It's been a broad experience and great learning experience so far, but am not sure I want to commit/pidgeonhole myself to this field. My feeling is that my modeling skills aren't probably up to par yet, though I do know how to build things quickly/work my way around excel efficiently.

All advice/comments are welcome. Thanks.

 
Best Response
john123067:
Have definitely thought about it for sure since we do handle our own workouts here in this group (financing DIP loans, dealing with different creditors/legal), but wouldn't it be harder to break into one of those groups as an abl/commercial banking analyst than an IB analyst?

Not if you have some workout experience and a solid understanding of the following:

  • Asset Value
  • Capital Structure / Stack
  • Creditor Rights / Liens
  • Risk Management

To me, that experience resonates far more with Rx than traditional IB, where you'd have to switch your mindset and focus on enterprise value concepts.

 

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