ECM to M&A?
Currently a third year ECM analyst recently been invited to interview for an M&A Associate opportunity.
I really want to go ahead but my big concern is given this is both a new role and also a promotion would this be far too punchy for me? If I got the offer would I end up shitting the bed and be clueless? My work ethic, presentation and modelling skills are fine but it’s more the fact I’ve had no experience in M&A (even my summer internship was ECM), I have no idea how the process works apart from high level stuff, I’ve never put together an m&a timetable, an information memorandum, or used things like VDR etc.. so how am I meant to join as an associate managing analysts when an M&A intern will probably knows more than me in this area?
I’ve seen the reverse in my ECM team here where we hired an M&A third year analyst who joined as an associate (he was fired after 5 months) because our first year analysts were better than him and constantly having to explain stuff to him given he had no ECM experience so we ended up firing him and hiring someone with ECM experience.
Has anyone moved from ECM to M&A at the associate level and coped? I assume it would be different and fine moving to an M&A analyst role because you’re still the most junior and will be taught by your associate.
Your team fired someone 5 months onto the job for asking questions..? Sounds toxic..
Yeah I thought they would have given him a year or so, I didn’t expect it, but he was struggling (which is understandable given he had come from a different product team) but he was struggling when working on things such as prospectuses, doing the regulatory document work etc.. so they let him go.
Also, ECM is far more intense than M&A, we have (slightly) better hours but our hours are more intense and fast paced so the team needed an associate they could rely on to manage the analysts etc.
Just curious, why switch? What do you dislike about ECM? Do you want to switch for short term issues/dislikes with the space or because of long-term goals that M&A IB would be better for?
Two reasons why I want to make the switch:
1) ultimate goal is buyside, m&a will be better for exit ops. I’ve tried recruiting from ECM but they all say the same thing (wanting someone with m&a experience)
2) ECM is basically just sales you spend most your time cold calling investors to invest in companies and organising roadshows, it’s exciting if your a salesman but I’ve always been a numbers person. Also at the junior level there is so much documentation and regulatory work you spent a huge amount of time completing admin documents and forms for the stock exchange and doing regulatory work which sucks.
PM me - I think I have a lot of insight to share with you that I don’t want to post publicly
Hey, I wanted to know more about your ECM experience. I am not able to DM you. Could you please?
Hello - In your case, it will be extremely hard (impossible) to move from ECM to M&A. Don't worry IPOs are interesting as well
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