How Is Corporate Banking and Big 4 TAS different from i-banking?

Big 4 TAS can cover a lot of ground depending on the firm. Some of the B4 use it as a cross-group descriptor of a bundle of service offerings like valuation, due diligence, M&A tax, etc and others mean a smaller pool of advisory teams.

In my experience there's a BIG emphasis on the accounting side of the transaction- due diligence, post-transactional, purchase price accounting, etc. I am not familiar with much, if any, strategy or negotiation advisory from the Big 4 standpoint.

At the end of the day, the Big 4 don't really have any access to the capital markets to help with any form of IPO, debt underwriting, etc. and can only offer the advice half of the IB experience.

As for recruiting, the Big 4 have target schools but they are often not the same as those of the banks as they need to hire auditors by the basket and they need people who are willing to work in smaller markets. For example, I work for a Big 4 that recruits Penn State and Rutgers but not Penn or Princeton. Penn grads as a rule don't want to audit manufacturing companies in Ohio. If you're a realistic candidate for a banking position I have a hard time imagining not being able to get a Big 4 job if you can get your resume in front of the right eyes.

Its back office after the fact kind of work. Not selling clients on M&A kind of work. Big 4 = accounting and accounting related, no matter how they spin it. Also, the kind of banking you're talking about is just lending money, which is nothing like modeling or doing things like lev fin.

"but is corporate banking and Big 4 TAS just as difficult to break into from non-targets?" - Don't make me laugh. They recruit only from nontargets.

1styearbank do you have any experience in IB?

Delete

Don't know why the post was cut off, but oh well. You get the idea.

Big 4 TAS typically involves valuation and due diligence like Edomerp said, much like places such as Duff & Phelps or Alvarez & Marsal do.

Those types of service are not back-office, or after the fact type work, who would pay for that after a transaction is consummated? They complement the work done by IBs and give an outside opinion to buyers such as PE shops or targets looking to be sold.

You are incorrect GoodBread. MOST of the work that the TAS groups do is post-merger, post-transaction stuff, such as purchase allocation (allocating the combined company's assets legally and accurately, etc). As to your question of who would pay for a post-transaction service? Any public company that engages in a merger, acquisition or divestiture. TAS also does "pre-transaction" things like issue fairness of opinion, but the bread and butter of the work is done after a deal is announced. TAS is, however, a decent place to be if you are looking at PE exits.

As far as corportate banking goes, it is basically a mix between commercial banking and investment banking (more like DCM). corporate banking gruops generally 'bank' Fortune 1000 clients and offer them solutions to run their business (revolvers, debt issuances, letters of credit, treasury management, etc). There is also pitching involved (like investment banking), and often times, corp banking MD's will pitch together with the IB MD's.

It sounds like corporate banking is a reasonably attainable thing for me and something that I might enjoy. I liked commercial banking and investment banking both, so a combination of the two sounds reasonable. What kind of numbers would I need for something like that? Is the non-target thing a big deal here too?

TAS is in my opinion, a good place to start. It will give you accounting credibility. (never worked in audit, but some ex ib friends landed gigs in the top 4). It is seems to be a REALLY tedious kind of job, long hours, small bonus and not a great "team spirit"

> Money kingdom is right on the description of Corporate Banking.

> TAS is in my opinion less difficult to get in, Corporate Banking is more difficult for a non target.

Corporate banking usually has an analyst program sort of similar to IB. Outside of a training program it becomes kind of hard to break in because the different roles within the corporate banking space are specific and not really anything you can prepare for in school.

Example, Trade Financing is within Corporate Banking, but other than a training program or internal transfer it is hard to enter. Setting up letters of credit isn't really something you learn about in school. Cash Management deals with all types of sweep accounts, lock box systems, higher end business solutions with no applicable school major.

Outside of a training program the best way to enter is really through a Middle Market Credit Analyst role which is the most directly related to a finance major. Usually once you get some credit analyst experience you can move up to looking at larger deals or become a relationship manager, etc.

Loan syndication, corporate lending, etc is really something that would most closely resemble IB and interest people on this board. I would approach it much like you would approach IB. Thing is target schools for Corp banking are really going to be 10-20 ranked schools, like one tier below Ivy's.