Canadian buy-side internship vs. IB SA

Currently interning at a maple 8 pension in a private markets team, and have an IB SA offer at a big 5 lined up for next summer. I heard from previous interns that it's quite common to get a return offer. If I do get a return, should I take it and reneg on my IB SA job? To be honest, not exactly sure what I want to do in the long term so thought IB would keep my options open, but heard that some IB analysts are having trouble exiting so I'm hesitant to give up the opportunity.   

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in current time, i would pick big 4 IB over pensions, especially if its a strong group such as M&A, there's lot of uncertainty on the future of direct investing within pensions. if you want to move to a different city/country, ib will give more optionality

 

Unfortunately I don’t find out my team until next year before I start, so I’ll have to decide before I know. Would you take most big 5 IB teams over an otpp/omers/cpp return? Also what additional optionality does it grant. Thanks for the reply!

 

In current time, yes I’d pick big 5 over pensions. You can avoid groups like mining but again despite the notion here I’ve seen analysts switch to other groups from mining, it doesn’t pigeonhole you that bad at the junior level, but avoid ECM if you want to do direct PE later. 

 

Appreciate the insight. On the direct investing point I’m in credit and my team only does direct investing, so I don’t think that should be an issue going into the future. Does that change anything about the decision I should make?

 
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