That's right. It's summer time.
Although doing deals and pounding out diligence is sweet, the Hamptons are sweeter.
How can we save time to get out of the office faster?
Putting together a list of best practices and techniques (applicable to junior PE & banking professionals). There are a few precedent lists out there, so repaste and steel credit for other peoples' thoughtful responses.
1. Keeping paper / Excel tracker of tasks.
There are different flavors, and everyone has their own system, but keep track of tasks by time / priority.
2. Send out all external to-dos in the AM or before the weekend (eg, consultants / accountants / bankers / lawyers).
Minimizes chance of someone else's mess blowing up my weekend.
3. Expectations
Set expectations double how long you think it will take and push back as much as possible.
4. Research
Ask friends for their research logins / access. Getting good research always a pain
5. Slide templates
I save down slide templates for generic internal deliverables (company profile, diligence deck, memo, etc.) Makes it faster to fill out a new one.
6. BamSEC
BamSEC for public co financials. I don't use public co data that often anymore, but I do read 10-Ks for relevant public peers. This shaves a few seconds off grabbing the relevant files.
7. Logointern.com for logos.
Saw this on WSO a while back. Makes it way faster to grab a couple logos or make an industry overview slide (many logos).
8. Google alerts
Google alerts for relevant portcos / industries (grabbed this off WSO too).
9. Folder in outlook / on Desktop for each portco.
Includes all latest financials, correspondence, etc. Saves time when I get the: "Hey could you send the latest ___ for XYZ co? Thx."
Mod Note (Andy): top 50 posts of 2017, this one ranks #33 (based on # of silver bananas)
I have a basic LBO template that I use to drop in the financials for a given CIM along with template output pages. It lets me pull together basic (but not thoughtful) CIM digest materials in 1 hour.
Make sure every excel has the majority of its outputs formatted so you can paste in as a picture. Makes updating books take 20 minutes rather than a couple hours
Dude.....it's called FactSet
Lol bank's do this all the time. The research provider is never going to send a threatening letter to one of their largest existing / potential customers. At best it will be a "please stop this" and an offer to have one of their sales people try to convert you to their platform.
Instead of making that chart your VP asked for, I'm a big advocate for reading WSO instead.
Hey betches,
Some buddies are I are putting together training materials / relevant Excel resources, including my LBO template. Check it out here: https://multipleexpansion.com/