Consumer & Retail vs. Natural Resources

Just as the title says - I’m in between 2 offers both MM, and they are both based out of NYC. Any thoughts or insights? Not sure what the sentiment is regarding where they fall in hierarchy. About equally interested in both

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Do c&r - generally more interesting businesses to work with and better exit options afterwards. I’m currently in m&a at a mm and we cover a few sectors but found the c&r deals to be better and easier to talk through on resume 

 

Agree with this. Additionally, its not only are they easier to talk through, but interviewers will understand what you are talking about. I have found in interviews even if you are a sector that has any sort of technical/odd component to it you then people often will just discount the experience.  "Ahhh your background isn't quite the best fit for us"  

 
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If you don't want to get pidgeon-holed I agree Consumer, but just to give an alternative viewpoint: I currently work in the renewables / energy infra space. I think its super interesting and want to keep working in this space. I would look more favorably on a natural resources applicant because I think the granularity of the modeling, an understanding of commodity markets, and an understanding of hard assets would all be favorable. I personally would go natural resources while acknowledging that's not for everyone. What do you want to do next? 

 

In terms of how they are perceived, I've always heard that healthcare IB seems to be among the hardest working groups, but I'm sure that's not true everywhere.

I think healthcare tends to be one of the more specialized groups bc the US healthcare system is, unfortunately, so remarkably complex. That said, when I say healthcare is specialized that doesn't mean that early in your career you can't start in healthcare and change lanes, more so that I would think it is harder to start elsewhere and change into healthcare later.

I saw this first hand during my first job when i was assigned to cover a portfolio name that focused on healthcare IT - a third party administrator. It became distressed and it took me a ton of research to really understand what was going on in the industry, but once I did it was clear that someone who really knew healthcare probably could have seen this coming. But since it was a software company it had gone through as a tech investment. The guy who initially made the investment for us had left but was an absolute all star by all accounts - think he was at Apollo's HVF or something of a similar for at least a while... forgot his last name so can't look it up anymore. But point was dude didn't miss much. It has made me pretty hesitant to invest in healthcare names ever since, sorta knowing that I probably don't know kinda thing.

 

Agree with this comment. I’m in a P&U group (so natural resources adjacent) and definitely find the space very interesting. In other words, I suggest actually following your own compass and intellectual curiosity. Being “pigeonholed” is only bad if you don’t like what you’re doing; if you do like what you’re doing it’s called being “specialized”. You wouldn’t tell someone not to play golf because the skills aren’t transferable to soccer and basketball. 

e.g. Adebayo Ogunlesi, chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners and billionaire, probably isn’t crying himself to sleep for being “pigeonholed” in natural resources early in his career; he might even think it was one of the best things to happen to him.

 

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