PLS Help: JPMorgan Corporate Finance Advisory Group

I would classify CFA as more of a "middle-office" operation - they assist coverage and product groups but they have no product of their own to execute and they don't generate revenue by themselves. This group's primary responsibility is conducting and publishing research on complicated issues that coverage bankers can then leverage to help generate business - for example, they will do work on dividends (to issue or not to issue), stock buybacks, pros/cons of investment grade ratings, etc. They'll maintain some pretty interesting databases of information which coverage groups can leverage when needed. One of their biggest areas is Ratings advisory. This group will almost always be looped into discussions about issuing new debt (since ratings play a large role in pricing) and acquisition capacity analyses. At more senior levels, people will certainly be on client calls to walk through their specific materials. This group is also pretty lean so even senior associates can find themselves responsible for a particular sector, which I guess can provide a good experience.

But understand that at the junior level, you are not executing deals. You are getting a very different form of modeling experience that might not necessarily be sought after by PE firms and hedge funds if that is what you hope to do afterwards. This group is not a standard "grind-it-out-for-2 years" banking group so should not be viewed in terms of exit opps - the hours are manageable; they probably work until 6pm on a normal day (little weekends) although they can get jammed when coverage needs their input last-minute (which can happen a lot). I imagine many of them stay on from analyst to associate, etc, although can't confirm. I would also add that most of these guys from my experience are very smart and quantitative - more than is required by typical banking.

To orangejulius' point above, I only know of one guy who moved from CFA to M&A - I wouldn't say that this is common and your "best" way to break into M&A. I think going from a coverage group to M&A is a much easier path.

In terms of bonuses, analysts will make the same as analysts in any other group - they still fall under banking and still train with the rest of the class. Keep in mind there are not a lot of analysts in this group...at the higher levels, I'm sure they are making less than their coverage and product counterparts given their internal advisory role and the fact that they don't generate fees by themselves.

If your goal is to do coverage or to get the PE and hedge fund exit opps, I would not recommend this group. Some of these guys have a lot of natural intelligence and quantitative understanding so I wouldn't be surprised if they could land hedge fund jobs on their own merits - but that is probably more of a product of the individual than the group experience.

Hope that helps - let me know if you have any other questions.