ECM to Corp Banking
Hey guys, wanted to get peoples thoughts or hear about similiar experiences, thinking about moving into Corp banking from ECM. Feel like I’m plateauing big time especially given how slow last year was and didn’t get many reps, and our outlook (and my year end discussion) was not optimistic, meaning I should expect another shit bonus.
I enjoy not working all weekend, every weekend, so fit wise Corp banking seems to make sense. I want to improve my technical and modeling skills, and maybe open up more exit opps (not interested in PE) since nothing I’m doing in ECM is transferable.
Starting year 3 right now as a senior analyst and interviewing for associate level Corp banking roles, so I’d be able to get a big jump in my base salary a year earlier.
Curious to hear peoples opinions and also any advice or insight on how I can best prepare a move into Corp banking if I end up doing that! Thanks all
Current 1st year CB analyst, feel free to PM
Hi can I PM you about Corporate Banking plz?
Cb will give you a longer career. ECM is increasingly becoming unstable.
Slow day at the office, so here is my $0.02. Current BB CB analyst in an APAC office (lunar new year yay), hopefully you can get the good, bad & ugly:
Weekend work: it's true that there is rarely an insane amount of work left over from the week to catch up on, but this is group and coverage-dependent. If your regional CB head is asking for a business update, you better believe your ED is going to make you sweat through the weekend to dissect revenue growth in each and every sector of the business that your team does with all of your clients and make a McKinsey-tier deck out of the numbers. Trust me, it's painful to extract monthly YTD financials from a data system that barely matches the numbers with the business categories correctly. Still, on average you're having 12-hour days with good pay, so it's nowhere near IB-level drudgery.
Technical and modeling skills: the bread and butter of the corporate banking business are TCP (credit facilities, loans, letter of credit, etc) and cross-sale of other products (treasury services, payments, markets, security services, collab with DCM, etc) that your bank has to offer. So your modeling skills will largely be limited to loan return-related models. Unless you are joining the credit risk arm of CB, in which case you will have a lot more exposure to cash flow, credit analysis, sensitivity analysis, you won't be getting the full IB modeling experience. At my bank, CB is the first contact point for corporate clients, through which clients are introduced to the breadth of products and solutions we have to offer. "Hard" modeling skills take a back seat when compared to relationship management and sales revenue.
Background & exits: I have seen people move from CB to credit funds, but that is a much less trodden path than BB IB M&A / LevFin --> MF / UMM PE. Also be prepared to answer the "why CB" question in your interviews, considering CB business scope encompasses little equity-related business and collaborates way more with DCM than ECM. So you should have an answer ready to address the motive behind making the move.
Just my thoughts as a CB analyst, hope this helps!
When you say "unless you are joining the credit risk arm", is that in contrast to the relationship management arm?
Yes, upper ceiling of comp is definitely higher on the RM side since you're originating deals and bringing in revenue.
Super helpful, much appreciated. Definitely would love to ultimately move into and RM type role if I were to stick with it and the one team specifically I’m interested in is more focused on origination and execution vs credit risk.
Fair enough on getting jammed here and there still, tough to escape that. Thanks again for the insight
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