SSA DCM Origination

DCM is not a particularly sexy topic to begin with, but SSA DCM gets very little attention from sites like M&I or even WSO.

Does anyone have color on what the field is like? What kind of hours do people work, what are the biggest players, what is the day to day like particularly for originators? Is the industry pretty much only in London or are their jobs in New York, Paris?

I would assume hours and comp are below corp DCM and the work relatively commoditized (with ESG bonds throwing in some interesting new developments).

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I worked in SSA DCM for my summer internship at a BB. Usually a small team, hours were bad my team comes in at 5:30 AM leaves around 7-8 pm. Work was mind numbing, full of surface level analysis

 

Hey, would you mind clarifying what made the work mind numbing? I got a DCM SA position at one of the BBS and I’m thinking I’ll ask to be placed in the SSA desk as I’m quite into macro, but I’d also like to learn something technical during the internship… what would you recommend? Would corporate or FI be more useful? Thanks!

 
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Hey, I'm in DCM, although admittedly not SSA, but I do know a little about the team. Our team starts at 7:30 (not 5:30 lol) and finishes 8-10pm depending on deal flow etc which is roughly inline with corporate and FIG DCM.

Big players are who you would expect, the big balance sheet guys plus in Europe I would add HSBC and BNP too.

There are teams globally but biggest are London, Paris, Frankfurt then NYC for the US.

Comp at junior level is standard across DCM (and across all of IB at my bank) but I don't know about the senior level.

Obviously goes without saying that it's super macro focussed and probably the most 'markets' DCM team.

 

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