Career ECM Banking

Sounds like a really really slept on career path. Our ECM MD and team appear to have great WLB and don’t take on any of the worry of relationship building / maintenance. Am I missing something? Or why is this path not talked about more frequently..

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One of the most appealing part of IB is that it teaches workers a ton of transferable skills like making pretty powerpoints and complex financial models that are useful in a ton of jobs and a ton of companies. After IB, you can work in at a hedge fund, a PE firm, a VC firm, or a long only mutual fund. If you want to work at a company, you can work in FP&A, Treasury, or Corp Dev, and hell you can even be a generalist at a later stage start-up. If you work in ECM, you are only learning how to work in ECM

 
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Did you miss the bit where the question is literally if ECM is a good path to go down for career banking, not what exits are available? Or is a circle-jerk about PE exits muscle memory to you?

 
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Not sure if ECM is as dead end as many people here sound.

At very senior level, there are banking heads came from ECM background.

At corporates, ECM can join IR or capital markets function that deals with investors (decent WLB as a potential semi retirement option for bankers exiting)

Some senior folks managed to build relationships with pre-IPOs they have worked with and exit into senior rank in strategic finance / corp dev. At the senior level you are a manager rather the the actual labourer. A strong relationship coupled with years of deal discussion experience (yes, discussion not execution, but you probably know stuff on a high level basis) is enough for you to drive the minions to work.

Correct me if I am wrong though ​​

 

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