Hey WSO,
Want to pick your brains a little regarding this dilemma. If my ultimate goal is to work in the corporate finance / Strategy group of a prestigious Tech company, would it make more sense to get into Business valuation at either a Big4 or mid market firm and do that for afew years and get valuation experience before looking to get into corporate finance, or go into a financial analyst role within the finance group of a tech firm, essentially doing forecasting, planning, budgets, some modeling and working with the strategy group, and then move up from there into the corporate finance/ strategy group? My background is 4 years at Big4 audit / CPA.
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SFA at Tech. I don't know a reason why you wouldn't be able to work your way into your desired role if you perform well.
It's not as easy as you make it seem. Corp Strat or Corp Dev groups are very lean and have few spots open up. Without prior M&A experience, it can be hard for SFAs or FAs to break in internally (or externally obviously).
That being said, I agree that SFA gives you the best chance. Business Valuation won't give you anything, so unless you can somehow parlay BV to IB, you won't have much of a chance.
^ What he said
Thanks for the advice. So the valuation/modeling skills I would get from working in BV wouldn't set me apart and add the right transferable skills for Corp Strat or Corp Dev? Sounds like the modeling skills I would obtain would only transfer over to IB if i was lucky. From what I have read, BV is very specialized and not much exit ops, is it not?
Correct b/c valuation is a different animal. Corp Dev and Corp Strat use merger modeling and, like IB, they have a "real world" approach. BV, at least in the MM, is quite academic. You are going to value a company using several different methods, such as NAV, capitalized returns, DCF, discounted future earnings, liquidation value, etc. But, it is more methodical and scientific in approach.
So the exits are quite limited IMO. Have seen some move from BV to IB, particularly early on in their career. Once you understand valuation, that means you have a solid grasp of the three statements and factors that impact value, which is what IB attempts to hone in on.
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