BAML Public finance
does anyone know anything about this division? have an interview for this and don't know anything about it or what to even expect in the interview
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BofA PubFin is their municipal debt group covering the state & local government, public utility, transportation, water & sewer, housing, higher education, healthcare (and sometimes sports/stadium financing) sectors.
Day to day, you’re working with these issuer types to issue bonds to fund projects/construction and refinance existing debt that they have. You assist with the structuring of where to amortize the debt based on revenue projections and what type of products to issue to optimize the cost of their debt portfolio. You’re also helping to prepare their ratings strategy & presentation, investor presentations, and offering documents for their transactions.
There are occasions where you’re working with sponsors and dealing with an equity component, but the group’s bread and butter is turning a large volume of traditional tax-exempt municipal bond deals. As a result, you can figure any technical questions will revolve around those type of products. Common ones are:
Interviewers know the public space isn’t necessarily well known/taught in college and recently focus a lot on what you know about the public sector and why you want to work in it. A lot of modeling is done in a program called DBC so banks recognize it’s a skill they’ll have to teach and train you on, so there’s not usually modeling/case studies. Having a good story for your interest and a sector of interest helps a lot. If you really are interested in the space and want to stand out, read through The Fundamentals of Municipal Bonds book. It’s the Bible for many PubFin bankers.
thank you so much!! this was really helpful. i was looking online and saw that some people get LBO and DCF questions, is that something to expect? based on everything I've learned so far it doesn't seem like these questions would really be applicable at all, but again, not sure what to really expect
Happy to help - Those aren’t really applicable for the day to day work in the group so I think it’s less likely they would. Sometimes banks have their PubFin division under their IBD umbrella, so PubFin bankers will ask questions/test in DCFs & LBOs if the interview process is for a general IBD contract (common for intern seats) since that’s the skill set most of the IBD groups are looking for and what most of the candidates have been prepping for.
That said, I think BofA’s PubFin shop sits separate from IBD and you’d be applying straight to that seat. If you’re interviewing specifically for PubFin seat and it’s not a generalist funnel, I think you’d be better suited prepping your muni specific knowledge. They might throw out a DCF question or two, but I believe they’d much rather hire some who demonstrates they understand the concepts in the public space and has taken steps to learn about it, since they would (correctly or incorrectly) assume that candidate could integrate quicker and become productive since it is a little bit different knowledge.
What's the lifestyle/hours like in Public Finance?
Depends on the bank, but generally much better than classic. I definitely had a couple 100+ hour weeks as an analyst when I had multiple RFPs with conflicting deadlines, but it’s mostly a 50-70 hour job with certain weeks even lower than that for me. Transactions are a little bit more predictable and standard so I think the biggest benefit is that fire drills are more rare. Sure your team could have missed when an RFP was released and are rushing to meet the deadline or sure you could be working late to get your structure nailed down before pricing in the market or to finish a ratings presentation, but with a good senior team there shouldn’t really be any surprises.
It’s rare to work Saturdays too unless you just have such a large volume of work that you need those extra 24 hours to finish it all. There’s almost never a time where a client needs to see something over the weekend. Because you’re working with government clients they’re a lot more 9-5 and won’t be asking for things outside of working hours unless you’re working with the largest of cities or states. Pay is adjusted accordingly for this, especially at the senior levels because takedowns are just so much tighter relative to corporate debt. There’s been fee compression happening for decades in the space.
BAML is a top bank. Love working there personally.
Would also second this - BofA is a good shop and one of the top players in the PubFin space and is consistently at the top of league tables.
Did you end up getting it? I’m doing Pubfin at a top shop rn too was wondering your experience so far.
hey, i know this thread is from a year ago, but did you do any networking to land the interview?
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