BB Corporate Banking Exit Opps?
I just landed a corporate banking SA offer at a BB. While I was recruiting for IB and kind of fell into this position through a recent alum, I like the culture and what I know of the work, and given the former, feel like it would be beyond dumb to throw away the offer especially in this environment. However, I am genuinely curious about where most people who start in corp. banking at a bulge bracket end up. I know it's much more common to stay on past your two years compared to IB (not that that's saying much), but what do other people end up doing?
Common exits for corporate banking on the buyside typically involve debt investing, especially loans. Private credit funds, CLOs, other credit funds, etc.
Like anything, exit ops are up to you. I've seen exits to PE, IB, corp dev, b school, management consulting, and many other career paths. At the VP and up level, common exits are treasurer roles, sometimes CFO roles, & other banks.
In corporate banking you will learn how to understand and think about a company's capital structure. You'll learn a lot about the syndicated loan market as well as about DCM in general. You'll also work with bankers on pitching other products like FX, TM, Interest Rate Hedging, and other financial services. Ultimately, exits will be whatever you put the energy into obtaining a job in. Or, you can stick around and be a corporate banker. Very relaxed way to make $500k+ without killing your work / life balance.
Definitely different interests for different people. I love debt because it makes sense to me. Your returns are set and you are evaluating the structure and the events that would have to happen to trigger default. To me, these are things you can get your arms around and have an impact in what your returns will be. Equity, to me, is a random walk. I can’t tell you what Tesla’s stock is going to do no matter what happens to it’s production numbers. But, I can tell you what the bonds return and what would have to happen to the company’s cash flow for them to lose you money.