Q&A: Ex-BB analyst across US and Asia in Oil&Gas/Power

Thanks Woozy - all great questions

1. My focus was Oil and Gas in the US and when I came to Asia I started learning Power and Utilities as well. I feel that I despite being in an industry group in the US, I used to do more capital markets - id say 60% cap mkts and 40% M&A. In HK it was the other way round

2. I didn't get my H1B Visa to stay and work in the US and I could only work for 1 yr under my student Visa. So my BB was nice enough to transfer me top another office. I had an option between LON and HK but chose the latter - early exposure to emerging markets, closer to home (India) and a chance to diversify into Power besides Oil and Gas

3. This is a great question for people looking to move to the buyside in HK.

- Firstly, the PE recruitment market here is neither as deep nor as wide - you have the usual suspects like KKR, BX, TPG and the other megafunds but then you also have smaller shops that are exclusively China or regional focused. But even the megafunds are more focused on China - There is no structured recruitment process compared to the US - so you need to be more entrepreneurial and proactive in looking at these opps and sending in resumes/setting up calls - Most places here do little origination and more presentation work - back to their offices in the US/Europe - Most places have a language requirement (Mandarin) - PE/HF generally pays lower than banking here (SURPRISE SURPRISE!) - this is because Banking base comp includes a housing allowance because rent is ridiculously expensive. PE and HF dont pay that allowance so automatically your take home base pay is lower

So to answer your question - many people actually end up staying in Banking just because it is really hard to land a buyside offer here. Those that do leave - id say about 40-50% PE, 30% HF and the rest go to industry

1. I'm still bearish on oil and gas. I will try to highlight this in another post focused exclusively on O&G but key points are below

Supply side - OPEC has basically become free for all with Saudi and Iran fighting for mkt share. While Saudi can still single handedly swing the market - they got burned too many times in the past - While rigs are declining in the US, production per rig has actually increased. So the overall production number is not falling as quickly as expected - Storage (oil and products) are full/ near full utilization globally

Demand side - Overall global demand is still tepid - El Nino effects on US winter - lesser demand for heating oil and gas

I feel oil and gas has entered a similar cycle to mining - where producers cut costs, produce more in the near term but eventually all the high cost producers will be pushed out. Previous capex cuts will have an impact by end of this year though there will be a stronger crunch felt by 2018-2019 when supply starts to fall in light of weak investment currently

So in short I feel oil has room to fall further maybe 25-30 range (Brent). It needs to stay there for a more stable recovery I expect to see a lot more consolidation in the services space near term.

1. I wanted diversify my outlook - banking is only one side of things and while I was recruiting I wasn't dead set on either PE or HF. The fund I chose had some great attributes

• I would be able to diversify into other industries but yet still remain in touch with Oil and Gas
• They had a separate pool of funds focusing purely on energy names
• No language requirement - we invest in developed markets
• Pay was better than banking
• Team was a great fit

So as you can see I was very "lucky" in finding this firm. From their perspective they were looking for a oil and gas focused analyst with international exposure and great modeling skills - I fit the bill

1. This is a question that I can write on and on about. I feel that in banking, culture is the No.1 thing - when you are working 100+ hours every week you want to be working with people that you like, you can talk to, shoot the shit etc. Below I am only talking about my experience - there are groups with worse culture in the US and ones with better in HK but this is just my experience

In the US we had a great group - we used to go out together on the weekends (at least the Analysts and Associates), throw the football around in the office, talk shit and crack jokes. In the darkest of times it was these things that made you feel like going back to work the next day and kept you fresh. Even the VPs and Ds would join us from time to time. While we crushed a ,lot of work, it was a great atmosphere and I didn't even realize how my first year flew by so quickly

HK by contrast was almost like a prison. No one spoke with each other, the hours were worse than the US. If you think banking in the US doesn't have any balance, HK is worse. At first I used to think that It was just because I'm not Chinese but then I noticed that even they didn't speak much amongst themselves. The VPs and Ds were more removed from the team.

Also in HK you had to fill out forms for everything KYC, Compliance - these checks that were basically one liner emails to people in the US. Basically the way you spent your time in HK was on all these internal things - besides doing execution/coverage

In terms of the actual work done for clients Hk was more tedious and meticulous. US clients are generally more sophisticated compared to the Asian ones - so there would be more to show, interesting ways of modeling out scenarios etc

Culture: US >>> HK Time spent: US>HK Work quality: US~HK

Hope this helps