Title says it all, if you are a M&M investment banker why did you decide to pursue the sector?
Not trying to ask in a rude way at all, just curious to hear responses from people in the industry as I am deciding on this sector vs a consumer coverage role.
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Why M&M? I think the texture and crunch is very nice. The small snack tubes are especially pleasing to eat. It's a good milk chocolate candy but a bit sweet for me. I prefer Reese's Pieces personally.
Huge chunk of my work is mining. Pardon the wall of text, tired af.
TLDR is it's super interesting because it's complex, very macro geared and every asset is pretty unique. The downside is its niche and will likely pigeonhole you.
The good: Anything that's highly geared to macro is super interesting to me. For example, simplistically high inflation = good time for gold, good China or industrials macros = good time for base metals. Mining is also seeing a huge boost from the EV / energy transition tailwinds - cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese etc. You'll have to be thoughtful on even the more basic things, so the analytical work is interesting. For example, if you're trying to put a value to something like the Grasberg mine, which has the largest gold / copper reserves in the world, how do you put your finger on a risk free rate for an asset in Iran Jaya? How do you think about comps for assets that have nothing more than a 10 year old resource statement and some recent drilling? How do you think of value for Barrick, which has 16 mines in 13 countries and countless exploration projects, land rights, mining licenses etc.? There are hedge books, tolling/processing contracts, and lots of little nuances in building out models. There are royalties/NSRs, weird flow through equity structures, joint ventures with staggered capital commitments, cross ownership, different tax regimes and a ton of different financing and ownership structures. It's really hard to distill down because honestly, almost every asset is very unique but the TLDR is that the modelling can be quite technical and complicated.
The bad: The work is niche, likely pigeonhole you and private equity isn't the end game because there are barely a handful worth working for. Building on the above, the analytical work is technical, but to a point where geologists, mining engineers and the like have an advantage. Company installs a ball mill, how does that impact your processing cost? They take waste ore and heap leach it, what does that do for economics?
I'm sure I missed a lot of nuances, that's just off the top of my head.
Cheers, I really appreciate that and it gives an interesting insight
Thanks for this insipiring comment! How would you compare M&M with PUI and O&G?
do you still work in M&M?
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