Goldman Sachs IB Leverage Finance Group Interview

I have a phone interview with GS Investment banking leverage finance group if anyone can please help me prepare, or tell me more about what this group does that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!!!!

20 Comments
 

i had a superday with them recently.

to be honest, not a very impressive group. definitely plays second fiddle to the industry groups at goldman. their main role is to provide pricing and terms for deals. the industry groups generally run the model, and levfin will usually provide debt specific support for whatever deals the industry groups are doing.

analysts are staffed directly into an industry vertical. so basically u might be the levfin analyst focused on paper and packaging. or industrials. and that will be what u do for the next 2 years.

but overall, it isn't bad. it has the goldman brandname, but the expeirence definitely did not sound very technical. it is more of a markets role than a traditional levfin or a corporate finance role.

pm me if u have quesitons.

 

do you have bloomberg at your office, check on the leverage finance articles? I assume this is for the lateral position they were recruiting for.

It's always good to know LBO, and if you are a lateral, you should know it cold by now.

 

True: this is for a lateral position but I'm coming from a real estate IBD boutique with no prior exposure to LBO's or debt markets. So at the very least I should:

  1. Understand LBO's from a conceptual standpoint very well
  2. Have a basic grip on recent debt market trends which can be learned from reading some recent newslines in bloomberg

Anything else?

 

know what's going on in the HY bond / lev loans mkt very well. by that i mean, any important new issues across an array of different sectors, how secondary levels are trading and what spreads are doing, trends of various HY indices, any interesting happenings (i.e. cov-lite in xyz issuances, refis are being done at x leverage, etc.)

 

Interesting - they're doing superdays now? I guess this is a lateral move.

OP, just curious, did you get this via the OneWire posting?

 

Lev Fin has been experiencing white hot deal flow this year... I think it's a great opportunity as I have some friends right now in Lev Fin groups who are getting crushed = getting staffed on lots of deals... exit opps are what you make of them but if you can get into GS Lev Fin you're looking pretty good!

 

Check out the resume and blog of Joyce Meng. Google her. She pumped GS Lev Fin for a while.

I always looked at Lev Fin as a sweet-ass internship opportunity but not a sweet-ass full-tiime gig.

It's a pain in the ass to transition from the markets side into PE. (Although I've never worked in Lev Fin and only know this from talking to guys who are trying to make the move).

 

Some lev fin groups are really good for buyside, some aren't that great. The problem is that different banks structure the groups differently - some have it as more of a markets-oriented role, while at others it also handles all of the modelling and analysis work too.

I believe at goldman most of the actual analysis is kept within the industry groups and lev fin functions more as a high yield capital markets / leveraged loan Capital Markets Group, especially if you are on the syndicate side as you point out. Transitioning to traditional PE roles from a syndicate group is not easy at all.

On the other hand, though, lev fin markets are on fire right now and that is a very good area to be in right now.

 

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