Transport & Infra Investment Banking - London
How's the coverage for this? Never done work for this coverage team... curious about exit opportunities/general deal flow/WLB/difficulty of work.. Does it pigeon hold me for any generalist PE offers if I start my career in Infra? Will I only be able to move to Infra PE?
Any top London teams covering this space?
Thanks all! Please any input would be very much appreciated!
Difficulty: V Technical (espicially Regulated Utilities) Models are very complex and IMs are very detailed and technical due to contracts, specialist equipment etc
WLB: WLB is shit. v sweaty teams as the sector is run by sponsors so very little strategic work unless you are at a BB with Balance Sheet, but even then, expect 75+% buyside staffings
General Deal Flow: V good but you will burn out on buyside staffings. Depending on team, debt advisory will also be included (refis etc) but M&A teams will do the model, debt advisory teams do outreach and pricing etc. Boutique teams will do both.
Exit ops: Unless you are at GS / JPM / MS, you will only get infra fund looks.
Top players: boutiques (DC, Cantor, EVR, Roths) BB (JPM, Citi, MS, BofA, GS)
As a 2nd yr infra M&A analyst, i am trying to get out of the sector as it is really pigeonholing. I have had numerous HHs refuse to put me through for generalist PE roles. Despite telling them that I want to move sector, they will only pitch me infra roles. You will have great difficulty moving to a generalist PE team - infra fund moves will be easy
Many thanks for this. I'll be joining a boutique covering both Debt Advisory and M&A - Infra/Transport Team.
WLB: What can I expect more or less per week, weekend work included?
Deal Flow: Pros/Cons of working on buyside staffing vs sell side?
Work: Any pros doing Debt Advisory work as well? Better CV selling opportunity for exit opps?
Would you suggest lateraling if placed within the Transport/Infra team? Any reason why you personally don't want to join an infra fund?
Assuming its either DC or Cantor - these firms will staff you on at least one buyside at any one time
Mon - Thurs will be 12am / 1am finishes (9 - 5 will be doing process and other random shit until the seniors leave, and then from 6pm onwards, thats when your work day will begin) More than likely to be longer depending on staffings (I averaged getting home at 2:30am across all of 2022)
Fri will be 8pm / 9pm finish
Saturday / Sunday you will be working anywhere from 0 - 36 hours, YMMV depending on staffings but you will almost certainly work a few hours.
Buyside - you work to a sponsor's timetable, you do everything they ask you to do. The reason why everyone wants to go to PE is because the WLB improvement - what that means is the PE shops hires advisors and then gets them to do all the BS work. We had a client ask us to resend the model with the only change being to rename the file. As seniors are keen to maintain relationships, they wont push back on stupid pointless requests and so you just get fucked over on the daily. One of the ways sponsors compete against strategics is that they promise to deliver bid in a timely manner (or they may choose to pre-empt - rip if that is the case, as you will work around the clock) giving them a edge.
Its good to do debt as M&A is debt and equity. However, the debt advisory is just annoying as it doesnt really count for much in buyside interviews (I have had buyside interviews where the interviewer has said " you have deals on your CV, just not M&A deals". Take from that what you will.
Infra is infra - still technical as shit, complex as fuck and highly competitive at every auction etc Super interesting asset class however I would not want to work in the space in a finance role (advisory or PE), would rather be doing diligence or market analytics etc where there is no time pressure and no unrealistic and impossible requests expected of you.
As An1?
add me
Is Power and Energy viewed in a similar light as infra? Or would working in this space open up more opportunities to move a generalist PE team?
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