Corp Dev / Strategy Role - No Deal Flow?
Hey guys -
I started as a corp strat / dev associate at a mid-sized tech company about ~4 months ago coming from an IB role. Comp was good, group seemed sharp, WLB was a huge improvement over banking, and I was interested in the direct c-suite exposure that I'd be getting.
Despite being a hybrid corp dev and strategy role, almost 100% of my work has been strategy focused so far (business cases, misc. presentations, etc.). I've only reviewed 1 CIM, which we ended up passing on shortly after receiving the materials. This company has not been acquisitive historically, which was a concern of mine during the process - however, I thought that there would at least be some deal flow based on what I was told during the process and the backgrounds of people in the group. I went into this job assuming that it would be equal weight strategy and corp dev, and frankly was most interested in the corp dev aspect as I'm coming from an M&A background. I'm beginning to feel like the actual role and what was advertised is significantly different, and I'm increasingly concerned that this role is a poor fit and a misstep. Maybe this is normal for corp dev outside of highly acquisitive PE-backed portcos, but I was assuming that by now I'd have seen at least one process where we submitted an IOI, did some diligence, or even did some market mapping considering that I'm 4 months in.
My question for the forum: is it worth starting a dialogue with my group to try to understand if there are any acquisitions in the pipeline that will give me deal exposure / if there will be any opportunities to work on M&A related work? If there aren't, should I go back to market and recruit for other positions with the narrative that my current role ended up being different than I thought? Or is it still too early to determine good / bad fit seeing as I've only been in the role for a short period?
Understand that the market for new hires is pretty terrible right now, so I'm assuming that the best path forward is to just stick it out at least a year and then worst case figure out a way to spin my experience to match what I'm interested in, but I'm curious to see if anyone has had a similar experience and how things turned out.
(1) Yes. You should have a conversation about deal flow. If you don’t get a satisfactory response, yes you should look for a role that more closely aligns with your interest. You have a very easy explanation to give in interviews as well. You were told the role would be half-strat/half-M&A and it ended up being 100%, or near 100%, strategy. You were hired into a job where the job tasks do not match with what you were told. People get that and will generally not hold it against you.
(2) I interned in a CD role and I am working in a CD role FT now. My internship was with Spirit AeroSystems which is a decent sized ($5-10b equity and rev) tier one aerospace supplier. That role was 90/10 strategy/deals. I think that is fairly standard for non-massive companies and for companies that don’t intentionally make dealmaking an integral part of the corporate strategy.
I now work at Dominion Energy. This CD role is pure M&A. Dominion is a massive utility so this makes sense. Especially since the team is small (ie - smaller than the Spirit CD team I was on) and getting smaller. If you see large CD teams that’s an indication that, unless there is a ton of deal history, that it is more of a strategy role. A large business with a small CD team is more likely to be a deal-based function.
Going to provide a different perspective than others here. Consider setting up your own deal flow, if they only reviewed 1 CIM, it may be that they don't get that many opportunities. One thing you can do is to talk to your CorpDev managers and ask about setting up an outbound sourcing initative instead of being entirely inbounds. Then get an understanding of the investment criteria and build your tracker and start reaching out. Alternatively, if you don't want to do outbound direct company sourcing, you can also discuss with your managers on reaching out to IBs to communicate investment criteria and to get put on their list. Keep in mind this isn't just the big BB/EB/MMs, but to look for small boutique banks as they often are the ones doing $100M EV deals and those are far more plentiful.
Some people hate the idea of sourcing, but remember that M&A is not entirely execution, it is an entire lifecycle that starts with identifying the M&A strategy, sourcing, executing, and integrating.