I’m out, last thought
Hey y’all,
That’s it, after almost 18 years in the industry, I’m getting out, and there’s nothing like a nice anonymous forum to do a bit of old folk venting for closure.
First, don’t underestimate how you will become a fucking slave to your comp as you move up the ladder. There’s the lifestyle of course, and getting five-star hotels on vacation when you are 24 feels nice, but more seriously once you get a mortgage and/or kids and/or older dependents and/or your wife decides to stop working cause you cleared half a mil, you’re doomed. Banks know it, and once you turn Director they just fuck you over because you have less leverage most of the time. PE firms think you are too old. Other banks will prefer SVPs or MDs. You’re stuck.
Second, if you think turning MD is about fair fight and competency, you’re thoroughly mistaking. Of course a handful of superstars can make it with their skills, but I’ve seen many more making it because of internal politics. Nothing extraordinary in corporate America of course, but they’re trying so hard to make you believe that banking is meritocratic that some folks genuinely feel wronged. Keep that in mind.
Third, god please stop believing that your financial projections etc. will be the basis of the valuation. Let’s be very honest here, M&A is a people’s business, so if sometimes you feel that there are weird requests (“add a page on this”), it may just be because the MD knows that the client wants to show a fucking deck with an MS logo on it touching on that topic, even if it doesn’t make sense. I will not defend the ridiculous overkill that some people want, but give credit to the ones that have a track record, they know what they are doing.
Fourth and last, to the younger ones, chill out a bit. Stop being so serious about everything. People in the industry are stressed out, they don’t want a junior to add complications. So yes, as sad as it may be, an analyst that works autonomously and is proactive makes your life easier, so you’ll like him better than the one you need to argue with or sucks out your precious time. Similarly, they lash out on you because you are at the end of the food chain and they can’t do it on someone else… It’s bad, toxic, whatever, but please don’t (always) take it personally.
That’s it folks, feeling better already. Take care.
What was your career trajectory like and what are you leaving to?
Quite standard trajectory actually: started as a graduate in a BB, left for PE a few years later, came back to banking (PE’s reality was disappointing…) and ended up stuck where I was for a few years.
I am about to join a sponsor-owned company. It was definitely not something I had thought about before I came across the opportunity, but challenge is exiting and we’ll see how it works out.
Anecdotally what % of Directors make it to MD from what you’ve seen?
I think it really depends on your firm and group within your firm. Some industry teams are structurally going to have fewer MDs than others. For instance, I (subjectively) think that Sponsors groups tend to have more MDs than more niche groups, which makes sense considering the dealflow and fees, although some groups tend to be overstaffed for some reasons (hello FIG). Then there is the fact that a lot of new MDs are hired from elsewhere vs promoted internally, either from other other groups within the bank (LevFin / Sponsors for example), from other banks or from elsewhere.
So all in all, and very subjectively, I would say 1 out of 10 across the board. If I look around me over the last 3 years, I’d say even lower but there had been a surge right before when markets were booming.
The other thing is that you really see the difference between bank tiers at that level in terms of comp. I have some friends who went to tier 2/3 banks to get the MD title, and were making less than Ds in BBs/EBs. Some managed to come back and hit the jackpot though, but not all of them. In BBs, you also have MDs, especially the older one with less influence, that see their comp decreasing every year with management telling them to go elsewhere if they are unhappy, but do not manage to do so.
Adios, cheers
Your previous post 3 years ago says you were an equity research analyst in Europe? If so, why are you posting this in the IB forum?
Another day, another monkey LARPing as a successful MD.
this is some annoying French dude working at Natixis
Avons-nous besoin d'un texte en français? trop d'anglophones au WSO - c'est mdr.
In fairness that was 8 years ago and said he wanted to lateral
Guy says he has 18 years in industry. His last post was about being an analyst 1 in corporate banking 8 years ago. This guy is larping.
As a newly minted VP this year in LF / Sponsors, appreciate the food for thought
OP writing style is so bad I can hardly read it. I imagine you did not have the best time in this field.
he's french they refuse to learn english
That's offensive, we can speak multiple languages, even better English than your president.
Ah, a French guy surrendering. Shocker.
18 French years in the industry is the equivalent of 9 U.S. years I believe when you factor in working a fraction of the hours and vacationing for 3 months out of the year
Lmao super funny to see those big American boys talking shit about France, while they don’t know shit about the latest. You really sound like a bunch of cliché, why don’t you focus on your own problems? Could play on cliché about USA with domestic terrorism, gun laws, abortion, and so on.
I personally love USA but the above comments just show a bunch of immature/ignorant crackhead. Hopefully you guys are not working in IBD, you are probably high schoolers anyway…
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