Investment Bankers have a secret way of communicating with one another. Whether it's a discreet nod or those matching Ferragamo shoes/ties, bankers have a fraternal pact with one another that everyone outside the industry just wouldn't understand.
However, you'll soon realize not only is there a lot of group think going on, but everyone likes to use the same jargon.
From MD's to Analysts, here we go:
"Let's add some color" "Stet" "Need more thought" "Can we beef this up?" "thanks" "thx" "tx" "thank you for your hard work" "thanks for pulling a late night" "ETA?" "Guys, what's the timing on this?" "Hey, how's it going?" "How are we doing?" "Let me opine on this" "Let me give you some thoughts" "Comments are coming shortly" "?" "???" "!!!" "increase the multiples" "pls" "make sense?" "will do" "sounds good" "need more" "more" " :)" "can we make these boxes rounder?" "i don't love it" "i don't hate it" "pls fix"
Mod Note (Andy): One of the posts of 2017 that have the most views .
always using hyphens - because it's cool
The double hyphen was passed down to me from my senior banker, and someday I'll do the same to some pos pledge.
Someone started a thread on jargon a few months ago that was very good. The absolute worst is the "thx" in my opinion.
"Can we massage these numbers?"
Best one I ever received was the following: "Make Better."
hahaha the brevity is hilarious. I once had a VP review my pitch book, and he scribbled "Shit" across the pages of 5-6 slides.
Me: [Long email with several open ended, multi-point questions] MD: "Yes."
TF????
Hahahaha. I had a VP like that. Best was, "Sil, your emails are too long. I never read them."
Managing Directors... who don't understand... the use of an ellipses...
It's a slow day at work, so let me me share some of my favorites:
When I was desperately trying to break into the industry, get coffee, land a phone call, make a friend, or talk to the guy so he could help me out, and gave him my cell so we could talk.
"Thanks for your interest. I've forwarded your email to our recruiting team."
"Don't burn the midnight oil on this one, but could you please adjust per the comments in the attached?"
Received at 9 pm.
Once I got an email signed off as Rgds, MD
Subject Line: need
Body: artcle from wsj or maybe nyt on papr pckging indstry from lst mnth
deleted
Subject: NP
Body: let's tick/tie all the numbers again to cover our bases. try to pay more attn to detail going fwd.
.
lol you're gonna have a bad time. You got asked what your bandwidth was? Pro tip: usually no ones gives a sht so if they ask, that's pretty good. Also, you got the full please. That's about as close to a hug as you're gonna get in IB.
whether or not you have capacity. no bandwidth = too busy to take on new work
"Stephanie told HR."
"pls show client resurgence in industry" "get creative this isn't a science" "wtf ER put a sell rating on our client" "get that guy back from vacation"
A new one i heard going around is... "i'm pregnant with this problem" or "don't want to get pregnant with this"
Always thought it could lead to HR problems....
md: use format on sheet x for other peers me: could you clarify what exactly you want reformatted? (only other sheet is identical to sheet x) md: let's see if you have an eye for details
Intern: "So you want me to pull all the precedents from 50 companies in the industrials space by tonight?"
MD: "Y"
"Boarding in 5"
"Don't stay up all night working on this, just have it ready first thing tomorrow morning"...
There is one VP that has responded on multiple occasions "looks good", and the attachment wasn't even in the email.