KPMG M&A London

"paidpeanuts" Big 4 M&A is the next best thing to real IBD M&A if that is what you are looking for. Not comparable to IB but it's a good place to start to get your foot in the door.

In terms of which group is the best, I would advise you to consider what sector you want to work in rather than thinking which sector is the best.

In terms of exit ops from what I've seen is that you will typically still need to exit to IB before you can go on to buyside. Speaking to recruiters it seems that the market perspective is that Big 4 M&A people usually need a little polishing when they head off to boutiques etc.

Thanks for your reply!

How typical is it for someone doing Big4 M&A to transition to IBD? At what stage is it usually done? At KPMG you have to do the ACA in 1 year, so you gain very little M&A experience in the first year.

"Colonel Sanders" Wasn't aware KPMG hired direct for M&A - at the SA and Grad level, its not available - though the option for accelerated aca was.

For what its worth, you would move to somewhere like jefferies/roths/HL/other sector boutique - that is the move most people did in my friend's cohort. Those kind of firms like the aca qualified people - you want to get on the team which is likely to do most deals - so i assume the standard TMT/HC space to be solid in terms of flow.

Again, for London, you can also easily move to smaller corp fin houses with ACA from big 4 straight to associate as well.

"Lloyd DankBlaze" Like rest of B4, KPMG is a pretty solid place to start - you'll see plenty of deal flow, if nothing else. Exit opps will be to banks (boutiques, European BBs and likes of Jefferies, HSBC et al) or directly to mid-market PE.

Cheers guys - KPMG do hire for M&A straight out of grad, it's a 3 year program where you do 14/15 ACA exams in the first year.

So a common route would be Big4 M&A -> MM IB -> MM PE? Do you know of any who jumped straight from Big4 M&A to BB IBD? I'm assuming you'd have to come in as a first year analyst?

Also, at what point of the 3 year program would you say it's most common to exit?

"Lloyd DankBlaze" Like rest of B4, KPMG is a pretty solid place to start - you'll see plenty of deal flow, if nothing else. Exit opps will be to banks (boutiques, European BBs and likes of Jefferies, HSBC et al) or directly to mid-market PE.

Exactly this. Big 4 CF are competitive MM houses. Exit opps are as above.