Australian internships

1. Can you provide a little more info on your background. Masters courses fall in a grey area for most banks in Australia. If you have completed a business/finance related undergrad degree along with a biz/fin masters, you may not be eligible for analyst/undergrad recruiting for some banks. I haven't checked recently, but 3-4 years ago most BB had a policy that only non-business undergrad -> masters were eligible. The other thing that may be helpful is work experience. Is it relevant work experience? If so, you may be able to look at associate positions, although obviously this will be more difficult. The BB tend to be more restrictive with respect to hiring, the boutiques having a little more flexibility. The names you mentioned take very few people and they are generally very high calibre.

2. What do you want to know? Most banks are moving towards hiring a larger proportion of their SA classes to keep costs down. It reduces their recruiting risks and makes the transition easier for FT analysts. All the usual things apply. Caliburn and Gresham do not have specific SA programs but I do know people who have interned with them. Generally they are top performers in Melb/Syd. Carnegie (now Lazard) is a bit of an unknown quantity after the deal. Look out for the new Grange/Lehman and possibly ABN with the off-shore deal potentially shaking things up.

3. Applications for the BB SA positions open shortly after FT recruiting winds up sometime around the middle of the year. Most of the websites start opening up a bit earlier, and deadline for submission is normally mid-July. Remember to submit long before the deadlines, we sift through resumes as they are submitted. If you submit on the deadline, it will most likely not get read.

4. Pure M&A would be UBS then the rest. MacBank works from a slightly different model, so it's a bit apples and oranges. Obviously Carnegie is right up there if you want to work under Wylie, with the Lazard name adding a little cred. I'm not convinced of Goldman in Australia, but others are. JPM have been building strongly with a sweatshop reputation. Yes, you can get hired directly in to industry groups.

australiaib:

1) First and foremost, will I still be considered for internships as a masters candidate? Will I be considered less of a candidate because I’m a bit older? I’ll have been working full time for two years by the time the internship roles around.

Not sure. I personally know of one or two people who have been in your situation and still done vacation work (we don't usually call it an internship over here, usually just vacation work). Older is definitely not considered worse, it just depends on whether you meet their definition of undergrad.

australiaib:

2) Could anyone who has been through the programs possibly shed some light on them? Ideally, I would be looking at one of the bigger banks, but I would also be interested in knowing if any of the more reputable boutiques (Caliburn, Gresham, Carnegie etc) do internship programs and/or take on graduates.

Its reasonably straight forward, with minor changes between companies. Most of the big banks will train you for a couple of weeks, then send you to a specific group (i.e.: equity capital markets, debt capital markets, industrials, TMET, etc.). You generally get to nominate group preferences.

Some will just send you straight to a group and train you as you go; some will rotate you through groups once or twice over the period.

Most programs run for 10-12 weeks, and are based in Sydney or Melbourne. The larger firms (except Macquarie) will set you up with accommodation if you're from out of town. The work you do is pretty standard. Usually you'll team up with an analyst with a year or so of experience and an older director/VP. They funnel work to you as you go.

I'm not aware of any of the boutique firms offering vacation work. When I last applied, places were on offer at Macquarie, UBS, Citigroup, JP Morgan, ABN Amro, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs JBWere, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Merrill Lynch (maybe?).

australiaib:

3) What time do summer internship applications generally start?

Keep your eye out around late June early July for summer applications. Best to start checking websites from late May/early June to be safe.

australiaib:

4) If you feel qualified, what ranking (for lack of a better word) would you give the various places? I would be looking to move into general M&A as opposed to specific industry groups (do Australian banks hire graduates into industry groups?)

As the bloke above me said, for pure M&A work UBS leads the market at the moment. Macquarie operates almost like a private equity group at times, and do a lot of buy-side work through their funds. Their advisory side of the business is good, but not as strong as the other firms.

Those two are the biggest two firms at the minute, in terms of staff and in terms of dealflow and value. Below those two I would place JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, GS JBWere, and Citigroup.

Below those I would place Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and Credit Suisse.

Then ABN Amro.

The traditional big American banks still have quality operations and staff, but they don't have the deal flow to match Macquarie and UBS.

If I had a personal choice, I wouldn't mind working at any of UBS, Macquarie, GS JBWere, or JP Morgan.

Anything else you want help, PM me. I've been through the application and interview process at a few places, so I can at least give you some advice.

Thanks guys, amazing advice and much appreciated.

A little bit more information, in terms of academics and E.Cs I have a fairly well rounded resume, my work is finance related but from what I understand the skills are not transferable to ib. The internship would be basically to get up to speed with the models etc... is there any other way in which I could build these skills aside from actual experience?

If you want to leverage your summer, take UBS. Not much leveraging with Macq. Then comes GS, JPM, Lazard, DB. Possibly MS, but only picking up more recently. Citi not as good lately. Then maybe CS. How you managed to put ML and CS with DB and Lazard is gone is beyond me.

Any info on the FT class sizes for UBS, Mac and GS (or others)?

Also on an unrelated note, any idea why UBS '09 FT application deadline is even before uni starts next year?

UBS FT '09 deadline is 26 Mar, a similar time it has always been. Melbourne is earlier, about the same time many fast-track applications (SA's from other banks who have been extended offers) are being processed. Dates have steadily moved further up the year as application numbers increase and to capture the outgoing SA classes. Normally do campus visits in the first week or two of semester.

UBS and GS FT class sizes around 4-6 in Melbourne. Around double in Sydney. UBS takes more than GS. Macq takes a lot more. Melbourne offices are predominantly made up of Melb people. If you were from another state, you'd probably apply for Sydney over Melbourne.

I don't see why people would choose Melb, except if they're from that city. This means competition for Sydney positions is higher. There's Go8 candidates from other states, and also Melb candidates who missed out on offers in Melbourne (since Melbourne hires earlier).

Most Melbourne offices basically recruit people in the last 2 weeks of SA programs, which gives Melbourne candiadates an advantage. In Sydney, if you get an offer after you finish, you'd never find out if you get another offer until many months later (which means you'll probably sign with your SA bank).