Placement agent --> IB?
I am a senior student currently interviewing for an internship at a boutique IB that arranges debt&equity financing for projects in infrastructure and industrials. The investors they work with are PE firms, and they complete between 5 and 10 deals per year, $50M min.
They are quite opportunistic in their deals, but from what I've understood they quite regularly act as placement agents, i.e. they just connect firms and investors without doing that much of heavy deal structuring work.
The partner I've interviewed with told me that my first mission would be, in short, to toughen up the financial modelling part to convince investors more easily. I would be working next summer on ~4 deals at various development stages.
Now my goal is to break into/lateral into IBD M&A at a MM/BB or a PE infra fund. Assuming I stay between 3 and 6 months at the boutique and crush it, do I have a shot at
- Getting an off-cycle in IBD at a MM/BB in Jan 2022?
- Recruiting for FT at a MM/BB (Jan 2022 too)?
- Breaking into a PE infra fund, which from what I've understood is less competitive than regular PE?
Would greatly appreciate anyone's contribution.
