Hey Would chose either GS ECM or an elite boutique (M&A). Long term goal is B-school and then private equity / venture capital.
Thanks
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M&A is historically better experience for PE; GS is a solid platform for B-school and will give you good opportunities regardless. If the main thing you care about is private equity, then m&a will probably be better experience since it is more similar to PE work.
However, I would take GS for a number of reasons: (1) Slightly better lifestyle/hours in CM (I don't like working until early mornings or weekends), (2) GS is a great name both for banking/non-banking/b-school opportunities, (3) GS offers good internal mobility b/w divisions, (4) m&a and private equity are way overhyped on this forum in my personal opinion (they may have done well in the past, but they are generally declining segments of the economy and look bleaker going forward).
To each his own though. I think this is a personal choice.
Why would M&A be a declining segment of the economy? Surely companies always need to buy and sell?
thanks for the great answer. I was thinking slightly the same. However, if you have the chance to be involved in a number of deals (15-20 deals with 8-10 analysts and associates), it will be more interesting from my point of view.
i would choose the elite boutique if your goal is PE/VC. Not sure how much weight an elite boutique holds for business school, but I believe it has to be similar to the bulge brackets. Honestly, I would choose many elite boutiques over some bulge brackets, including goldman sachs.
for PE M&A experience will be much more valuable than IPO work and ECM, I would advise you to choose the boutique, even though your lifestyle will be worse etc. its only two years and your skillset will be much more diverse than what you would pick up in ECM.
To get into PE after B-school you'll probably need pre-MBA PE experience. For that, you'll probably need M&A experience.
Elite boutique.
Ok thanks!
What the f*ck kind of question is this, anyone who chooses ECM at GS over an elite boutique does not deserve to be at an elite boutique.
it's understandable, for a lot of college kids GS has a very strong name that none of the top boutiques (lazard, evercore, greenhill) can really compete with, and ECM is still banking at the end of the day. i would vote elite boutique here, but it's not that crazy a question
Unless you wanted to do capital markets...
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