IPO vs M&A
Why is M&A work viewed as so much more prestigious than IPO? Does it simply generate more fees for the bank?
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M&A more attributable to the buyside so virgin highschoolers who have had a dream of working at a HF since their 10th grade crush rejected them foam at the mouth over M&A exit opps
From the analyst perspective: the realistic answer to this is that many banks will have meaningful roles in M&A mandates and very few will have meaningful roles in IPO mandates, so it's not realistic to target meaningful IPO experience.
In tech for example, GS and MS have 90%+ market share over lead-left roles in IPOs. If you're the analyst at GS/MS on a high profile IPO, you're going to do a *ton* of really interesting work for the marketing materials (writing S-1, creating the investor presentation, working with client on analyst day, etc.) and get some decent modeling/valuation exposure as you get closer to pricing. For the other 5+ banks on the deal, however, you're going to be stuck with a lot of random internal process work and not much else. For analysts at GS/MS tech, working on high profile IPOs is just as coveted - if not more so - than working on scaled M&A because it's generally less stressful, gets you more client reps, and you actually get to learn about your client beyond its financials.
Yea man MS IPO’s is more coveted than MS M&A hahaha. Congrats on ECM brother.
Thanks! Does m&a generate higher fee for the bank or would being a lead left on an IPO generate a higher fee?
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