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ECM is the JV team of investment banking - they don’t go to PE / HFs - they do their silly little cap raises and IPOs and collect their co-bookrunner fees while M&A gets dogged. (No bias here I promise, definitely not jealous of the WLB)

That said they do get paid relatively the same as M&A, (slightly less from a bonus standpoint I’d imagine, group specific though) and personally I think working on big IPOs could be cool

 
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Honestly ECM is a great gig and not sure why people hate on it. When you look at what people want to do after 2+2+2 their ultimate goal typically sounds like ecm (good wlb @ high pay)


1) Pay is great (160/185/330/250/330 as my An1-As2 comp)

2) Minimal weekend work + better hours. Less burn out and longer longevity. There’s a lot more a2a

3) A lot more client exposure at a more junior level


4) People are way more laid back / fewer hairdos


The work is pretty mindless but I don’t think it’s any worse than spreading comps, building strip profiles or whatever a coverage analyst is actually doing. An ecm deck is more or less creds, market update, recent issuance, menu page of options, sizing, investor targets, calendar. Typically anything that involves time or effort you outsource.

 

Thanks for that perspective! What are hours typically like on weekly basis and what type of bank are you at if you don’t mind me asking?

 

A lot of it is origination heavy, working with your coverage/sector teams to try and secure mandates. Typically pitching is quite light, creds, market update, listing considerations, pockets of capital to target, roadshow calendar etc. Typically liaise with research & S&T - if you're in the UK, Corporate Broking is also deeply-linked to this, and a lot of IR prep is outsourced to the brokers. Once a company IPOs, if they're planning future sell-downs, the ECM and/or broking teams will be in a 'honeymoon' period of cuddling the company to be guaranteed future mandates, a lot of it is regular dialogue with management and explaining why the company is trading as it is. Whilst having good seniors on a syndicate is important for the relationship, a lot of the time its transactional i.e. they appoint banks mainly for the research coverage.

 

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