Which divisions in Big 4 Accounting can you lateral into IB with?
In your experience which divisions in the Big 4 are best represented in your field? Are there any differences among the big 4's divisions?
Transaction Services tend to have the easiest transition since you're always on the road and work very closely with deal teams. After a couple of years you'll have a hell of a network of bankers and PEGs
anyone heard of EY TAS Real Estate? How\'s it
I've personally seen:
Audit --> Lower MM IB Tax --> Boutique IB TAS --> IB
TAS is definitely the easiest to make the transfer for sure. Supposedly TAS is a feeder for PE as well, although I've never personally seen it. Heard it a lot though. This is also pretty dependent on the economy.
how would you get into TAS? I'm a Property Accountant with over 4 years of residential and commercial experience (Jones Lang LaSalle). Also, I'm a CPA candidate, almost completed my NYU professional certificatae in real estate finance and investemnts, and I've taken KAHR Argus-DCF course.
God you sound like a mid office lifer who wears khakis and square shoes.
It's going to be a long shot. I would do an MBA. BIG 4 corp finn is possible but still hard.
I have a good friend who worked as an real estate accountant and eventually switched to real estate capital markets.
big 4 accounting have ibanking? (Originally Posted: 11/04/2009)
what is this i hear about kpmg m&a? is that real banking or the same as pwc tas? How about deloitte's banking?
How come if they are legit ibanking groups they are not even on the top 50 of league tables?
They are primarily, if not all, engaged in small deals. If you take a look at some countries, they are actaully ranked almost at the top, in terms of number of deals. The top 50 you are referring to is measured in $ terms. That’s why big4s are not included. Hundreds of small deals cannot beat one big deal.
Deloitte is the only Big 4 I know with a legit investment banking group. They have done mostly healthcare deals, and are a pretty small group of maybe 10-15 people in NYC.
KPMG does not have a banking group. They have a Transaction Services group. They do due diligence on deals and quality of earnings analysis on potential targets, etc.
So all these places are really crappy and are not real ibanking?
http://www.kpmgcorporatefinance.com
Accounting firms are not globally standardized in terms of the service they provide.
Some locations have real corporate finance which deals with mid/small size clients. (KPMG Corporate finance or Deloitte Financial Advisory Service)
Some are simply due diligent work (think transaction advisory service)
They obviously don't pay as well compare to BB hey if u are good enough, aim for the BB given the economy, this isn't a bad place to start.
Best role at a Big 4 to transfer into IB? (Originally Posted: 08/02/2017)
What roles at a Big 4 prepare you best for a switch to IB? Is it possible or common? What roles in Big 4 prepare you best for IB-related roles skillset-wise, and what roles are looked upon most preferably by IBs? Edit: if not viable, what would you suggest as an alternative path? (I plan to go to b-school, should I just hold off on IB until then and bide my time with various finance roles?)
Also, if you were working at a Big 4 before business school, how difficult would it be to make the transition into IB?
Audit provides you a good understanding of the three financial statements, but you won't see any parts of an M&A transaction or have any context into valuations. You'll spend a lot of time learning about businesses though. You spend a good amount of time at client sites and see a bunch of different parts of their business. Having those insights about how businesses run can be very helpful background and context, it's just less immediately relevant to the job descriptions of an analyst to "hit the ground running".
Transaction services (financial due diligence) provides you insight into at least parts of an M&A transaction (mostly the accounting / "Quality of Earnings" diligence portion), and some basic concepts of valuation (because you need to figure out what a "normalized" EBITDA is for a business in order to apply a multiple to get to your EV). You also spend a lot of time working for PE firms and get a glimpse of how they think and the kind of questions they ask, especially as it relates to accounting/financials. There's more a cachet with TS than audit. But it's also harder to get into TS than audit. Big 4 is starting to hire directly out of undergrads, but the number of openings is far less than audit.
Valuations can be very good background as well. They're not really hired during the M&A process, but as the name suggests, you learn about valuation. Probably know valuation nuances better than even IB folks since that's all you focus on.
While I've seen all three exit into IB analyst programs, in terms of which gives you the best chance of lateraling, I'd say TS > Valuation > Audit (best to worst). If you're open to MBA, honestly any of the three can position you into a top 10 or 15 MBA that will then position you fine for an IB Associate role.
Obviously from Big4, advisory group would offer the most transferable skill there. For example KPGM has deal advisory & strategy group in its Advisory umbrella that gives some M&A experience as well as valuation skills, etc.
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