Big 4 TS financial due diligence ---> IBD, input please

Long time reader here, rarely post.

Have been working in financial due diligence - private equity group at a big 4 firm for 2 years now. starting to wonder if I want to continue or not. has anybody made the transition from a similar situation to banking/PE? curious to see others input. I ultimately would like to work in PE but plan on business school as well.

For those in banking, is it fairly easy transition? I would say that I have excellent excel skills, analytical skills, accounting skills (prob. more than enough for banking), not a stranger to the demanding schedule at all (including travel). I have never built a model, although I review/examine them on almost every deal we work on, including building the QoE adjustments which are ultimately fed into client's model. That being said I don't think I would have a hard time picking it up, but curious to see what others think.

thanks guys in advance

10 Comments
 

I suggest you spend some time in the FDD since it will give you a very good orientation of how to assess the business from a financial perspective, a merit always needed in any field. AT the same time, doing an ACCA or CFA will be a great boost for you...The best option is to work over both, you can ask your supervisor to work over a Business DD for an assignment or two, just to feel the Gist of it Good luck

 

What country is this internship in? I think Big 4 FDD carries more prestige outside the US. If IB is your end goal, recruiting for FT this summer/fall wouldn't be a bad idea I think. Your past experience and attending a target school will work to your advantage. Although the modeling skillset gained in TS Valuation is more favored to that of FDD from bankers perspective, FDD > IB is still very common. So if you network heavily, you will have a good shot at landing interviews either this year or the next. Good luck.

 

Big 4 FDD from what I've seen is actually not a bad spot to be in to get into IB. I have a friend of a friend out in SF doing BB TMT IB straight from undergrad (non-target) and his only finance related internship was a PwC FDD summer stint. I've also networked with a couple Big 4 FDD guys who made it into IB after a year or two. You just have to network hard and relate the FDD job as much as possible to IB.... SELL yourself. Regarding your other questions, I'd get advice from someone else.

 

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