M&A vs. Coverage. What’s the difference?
I’m genuinely confused. If coverage teams own the relationship, and do their own “in-house” M&A analysis, what do the M&A teams do?
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I would say the confusion stems from your understanding that there are two styles a team can run when there are actually three. If a coverage team does in house M&A then they don’t work with the M&A team on deals. Some groups at banks like FIG will do this since their modeling is unique so they have in house M&A. The other two styles are distinct M&A and distinct coverage. These two styles have to work together and M&A is responsible for analysis, process design and organization, and due diligence while coverage is responsible for pitching and marketing materials.
I think even for some of the in-house execution coverage teams, they'll still loop in M&A for some stuff - i.e. I was on a coverage team in a very niche industry, modelling and all the actual analysis was done by coverage but M&A was used for more logistical needs (i.e. helping with data room) and with helping out on decks on the less complex stuff.
It's super variable, both based on the bank, and the group.
For example, on a NatRes deal, the M&A guys might really just act like outsourced labor, organizing the VDR, ripping slides, etc. Literally just beefing up manpower for the coverage guys running the more complex stuff.
On a consumer deal, the M&A folks might take care of most work streams, with coverage staying on to do industry pages for the CIM, etc.
Literally varies situation by situation. In my previous coverage group, we had files we fully ran ourselves, and files mostly run by M&A.
Got it. So if I’m interested in a non-modeling coverage role, would you know which banks I could target for that? That run their groups in such a way
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