What movies (or TV Shows) would you say depict Investment Banking most accurately? Would you say movies such as The Wolf of Wall Street are an accurate or an outdated representation of the lifestyle of bankers? I hear The Big Short is an accurate one as well.
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Yes, I would say the Wolf of Wall Street is extremely accurate. Especially the part where Leo throws a dwarf at a target. This is common practice at most BBs. Dwarfs are usually hidden in closets until they are thrown at targets on Monday evenings at 8:00 pm. This is commonly known across the Street as "Monday Midgets".
Can confirm. Had multiple supers to be a Closet Dwarf Summer Analyst last summer at some of the BB's (think JP MS GS type).
The midget tossing was an actual Jefferies event like 20 years ago that got the firm in trouble. It was the brokerage side, not IB.
99% of the time, the public's idea of "bankers" is not IB but some other person in finance. Often brokers or buy side. Anyone who watched the Big Short and doesn't work in the industry thinks every character in that movie is a banker.
Totally agree. Almost all bad behavior in "banking" is institutional sales people of one type or another. Snorting coke in front of a CEO is great way to get black-listed from your industry if you're on a deal team....
Former group head at my former bank actually did hire midgets at his party in late 90s while at another bank. It was on few newspapers. Investment banking
We actually call ours Midget Monday, but yea when 8pm hits it's MTT (midget tossing time)
Wall Street 1987 is such a great film. Accurate depiction of 1980s finance
I can't tell if you're being serious...but I don't think that's how it went down. Not even for Boesky or Icahn.
Rogue Trader is the most accurate i've ever seen
IB isnt depicted in the media lul. I've been meaning to write a novel though and my writing skills are mark twain x george rr martin. I know if i did write it, it'd get picked up by socrcese or tarantino, would u guys support me?
Even WSO does not depic IB accurately, I never knew we have to draft 60-100 pages internal memo for all the deals (even bond deals for crappy issuers or small ticket equity placement).
WSO did not tell me powerpoint charting, graphic design and desktop research are the key skills for IBD.
I wish I knew 70% of my time is spent on desktop research and building appendices that nobody reads.
Oh btw, this vid depicts IBD best
youtube.com/ watch?v=L_LUpnjgPso
Banking is too boring to portray accurately in the media...
Margin Call might be the most accurate depiction I've seen, and even that's more focused on S&T roles during an actually very interesting, albeit compressed, timeframe. The poster above mentioning most of banking is too boring to display accurately in media is right. Nobody wants to watch an analyst #REF out a model, or a bunch of bankers walk through a DD question list with a client, on primetime TV.
The made-for-TV movie of Barbarians at the Gate is probably the best with Shearson Lehman scrambling at the last minute to get a bid together.
Margin Call is close-ish but as mentioned, it is the S&T/Cap Markets side of things.
Although the hands-down most accurate is that single scene in Succession where Kendall is screaming at his banker:
"You're fucking me here. I'm making good faith fucking assessments to my father, and you're making me look like a hack, and I will not have it. Stop sucking each other off back here, and get fucking on it. You pour the shit I'm pouring on you on your fucking minions, and you ride them. I don't care. 24 hours, rolling shifts, crack the fuckin' whip. Everything you're doing is fucking bullshit, and I'm very disappointed in you. I swear to God, I will fucking fire you if you keep monkeying around... Put the fucking snacks away!"
Lol - I was going to post that Succession scene. That would be my pick as well
Succession s2 scene w/ Logan Roy having dinner with his banker who is smooth talking him into accepting the hostile bid for Royco was a pretty slick representation of sellside advisory IMO
I think on TV / Movies, more often than not you will see lawyers doing the deals.
I was just watching the Change-Up with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, where they pee into a fountain and switch bodies. There is a tense scene between Jason Bateman's legal firm and an opposing legal where they are trying to hammer out a deal. They were asking for financial information, EBITDA, leverage etc. and one of the lawyers asks about the WACC but says "W-A-C-C". I might be going crazy but found it funny for some reason.
Lol lawyers are depicted in TV so wrong, they basically just answer questions from buy-side firms about wtf any of this means before those firms makes decisions.
I guffawed at "W-A-C-C" like it's the women's ACC college basketball tournament or something.
Not a big fan of "EBIT-D-A" either but have heard that from CFOs (!!!)
whats wrong with EBIT DEE AYY... easy man
Oh my god I had a partner who always said "EHH-BIDUH. Sounded so ridiculous. Everyone else in the room saying it normally, and he keeps saying Ehhbiduh.
it's always the old guys that say it
Wut.
Margin Call is the most accurate and likely the reason that it's less popular than a lot of other movies but I love it.
Check out bad banks, it's a German series so you might need to find a version with English subs but is the closest thing I've seen on screen to the actual vibe of IB. The story is a bit of a stretch obviously.
Bad Banks was such a huge let-down. Extremely well shot, some interesting characters, especially that Dutch boss - but the story was sooo fucking shitty. Never worked in IB, but even I know that the writers had no fucking clue what they were talking about. Heavens, do we really have no equivalent to Michael Lewis or ARS here in Germany?
I only watched the Wolf of Mole street
the Assault on Wall Street movie is a pretty good representation for me personally.
Office Space - not an IB movie, but resonates the same in terms of day to day work,
Suits has some characters in IB roles although they work at a hedge fund
Suits also frequently depicts the lawyers doing bankers' work/giving bankers' advice to clients, and conveniently there are never actual bankers involved in the deals
Big Short was dead on for that era, especially when he faces the credit rating agency and tells them their rating is wrong, and she says "but they'll go down the street!" (I literally remember hearing stuff like that pre-crisis) , and there you have a good 50% of why we had the crisis, and 100% of the reason why the ratings agencies are now so heavily regulated! Wolf of Wall Street wasn't about Wall St at all - it was about a boiler room penny stock brokerage. I don't know what their parties were like, but I think the crude language/behavior may have been on trading floors years ago. Again, not really Wall St, more like Marshall's as compared to Neiman Marcus, you know?
The movie Equity actually does a great job accurately portraying an IPO process
Equity and Margin Call are probably the most accurate. I think movie/TV depictions are generally shit, though.
Can't imagine a show where you watch investment bankers navigate internal politics between product groups and coverage groups. Then you get to watch them turn comments internally and witness the internal conflict the analyst faces when he gets a conflicting set of comments from the VP he's close in his group and the head of M&A. Yikes pass on my side
Lol - the analyst would probably end up being a supporting character at best and a punching bag for everyone else. Main guy would need to be a senior VP or MD who’s got enough autonomy and spends enough time out of the office to have cool things happen to him. Put him at a fictional EB that’s NYC based but has clients on every continent and flys people all over the world for meetings.
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