Example: Head of tech group thinks Facebook has levers to pull for growth (stock buyback, transformative M&A, project finance ideas) but hasn't been invited by Facebook to formally pitch, but he thinks his ideas can help the company.
Does this exist or are materials built based solely on mandates / official requests for proposals?
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bump; am interested
bump
It is quite normal that MDs have dinners / meetings with C-Suites where they are presented with unsolicited ideas
Usually your bank / MD needs to have good relationship so they "give away" their time to you, a no-name boutique would never get such an opportunity, but a BB/EB MD may have it
That's really interesting. What's the point of a smaller boutique then? Is there really no way a boutique can punch above their weight? I guess that makes sense from a BB POV, they help on the IPO, debt issuance, capital markets and if they're good, they can be that "trusted advisor" to the opco. Thanks for this.
Those small boutiques must create good bonds or bring former MDs that have those relationships so they can scale up
The point of a smaller boutique is to help smaller companies. Just because they are not getting the biggest M&A mandate doesn't mean they aren't doing deals, they are just doing deals that you or I will never read about in the WSJ. Having had experience in LMM investment banking before joining a BB, I can assure you that "true" boutiques (I'm not referring to Evercore or Moelis) do not have sophisticated enough advisory capabilities or brand name to merit working on large transactions or get in the door with big-name CEOs
All the time. MDs will usually call/check in on a regular basis and then casually pitch an idea. For operators it’s nice to get colour on the market from them specific to the sector and who knows maybe one day they’ll have a good idea.
It seems like "advisory" as a whole is both transactional but can also be consulting-like in the sense of unsolicited ideas/ways to deliver value. Do juniors have the chance to spitball ideas as well or is it all just blocking and tackling from the MDs / Seniors mouth?
If you're a junior person who's in the weeds of SEC filings and other documents, you can definitely raise your hand and inquire with your VP or banker about a potential idea. Helpful junior ideas are more small-scale than mega-deals. You might read a company has certain real estate assets and could be a good candidate for a sale leaseback to free up capital. Maybe they generate X amount of revenue in Yuan and there are compelling FX products that could be suggested. Maybe a client has expressed interest in a niche subsector and you noticed a PE firm has owned an asset in that sector for several years. If it's an interesting idea, a senior person may ask you to do more research and ultimately a pitch could come out of it. However, it'll be the senior person pitching the idea to a client.
Why the fk would you want to do more work..
Correct. This describes a typical day in the life of an MD
All the time, but GL getting in contact with FB or having them return a call/email.
Yep, very much so. One of the primary roles of a banker is to give advice on subjects the company does not have expertise in. Facebook isn't the best example since they're one of the largest companies in the world with massive internal teams, but most companies outside the F500 rely heavily on advice (and unsolicited ideas) for M&A, capital structure, financial risk management, cash flow management, etc.. For F500 companies, you still appreciate (well... sometimes appreciate) ideas from bankers for your business. However, the larger the company, the more they'll have people with that knowledge in-house, so banking relationships become more transactional.
Yes. EBs and BBs are doing it frequently and even top tier MMs. One of the biggest gripes about hours at some firms (e.g., Lazard, Piper) is that there is a significant amount of time spent on tedious idea decks and other outreach with low likelihood of deals.
"Ayyyy yo Zuk buy back some stock bro, that'll be $3,000,000"
Lol I've had an md not get mandated, lose a pitch and then start grinding the deal team to continue to do analysis so we can try and get picked up as a unsolicited coadvisor. Was a total waste of time and went on for months....
That sounds brutal - whenever I think my experience is bad there are always these nuggets of truth on WSO to put me in check.
Bb also
this hurts. my last two days of my SA stint had a fire drill because an MD had a meeting with a large tech unicorn. Like $1bn+ valuation, uses GS/MS for everything, and we were a lower mid market shop. Got about 3 hours of sleep over the 48 hour period to put together 20 company profiles (and implement the seemingly thousands of changes from the Associate/MD) of companies that had no strategic relevance to this potential client but the MD wanted to pitch for an acquisition. Turns out the meeting wasn't until two weeks later and as expected they kept GS on for future business and kept us on as co-manager for other bullshit deals. At the end of it, was told I did a subpar job on my slides. Got the fuck out of there and landed FT at a much more reputable bank. But it's banking, i'll probably have the same issue at some point.
I'm only about to start my career but it makes you think if MDs had more respect for themselves instead of simping to various C-suites, they might actually win more business. Hot girls never go for thirsty guys, no matter how pretty the valentines card is.
Underrated comment
Forget where I heard this story, but there was an MD or other senior banker that would hear about bake-offs where their firm wasn't invited to, then make thir team pull together a book for the pitch. Became known as "fake-offs."
“Discussion Materials”
You just described what banking is
Isn’t there some story that junior bankers came up with the Whole Foods / Amazon merger? Possibly turned into an unsolicited pitch
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