I'm in a global banking traineeship right now within a universal bank in the Netherlands. During my traineeship I have been in a mid-office position for three months, as well as in an internship position at the ECM team. Currently, I'm in my final assignment where I get to work as a credit analyst on corporate banking and acquisition finance / LevFin deals for the mid-market.
In a while my traineeship comes to an end, and it will be time for me to decide what I want to do for my first real full time position. I have already narrowed down my choices to ECM and Corporate Lending (Large Corporates).
The thing is that I like ECM because of exposure to the stock markets and the interesting and exciting deals in the pipeline. On the other hand, I feel like Corporate Lending allows me to analyze companies in more detail and I think I could become pretty good at it starting out as a credit analyst, since my analysis and writing skills are pretty good.
In short both ECM and Corporate Lending appeal to me, so I was wondering if any of you could provide me with some advice on which one to choose. I'm aware that the final choice is mine, but I believe your thoughts could be useful.
In the future I think I'd like to stay in banking, but private equity and Asset Management also appeal to me.
Thanks!
There are some headwinds for ECM, one is where rates are and two is the fact there's a lot less of a need to go public early to fuel growth. It's really cheap to issue debt now, so why IPO or do a dilutive secondary when you can grab some cheap debt? Secondly, there is a lot more of an ability for firms to stay private. Just look at Uber, they've done billions in financing without a need to go public, the appetite is there to do big deals and there's a lot of cash sloshing around to do them with. There really is a full continuum now from seed to LBO shops and you can remain private along the way. It seems like a lot of middle market companies that would have IPOed are going and getting snapped up by sponsors.
This isn't to dissuade you, I'd rather be in ECM than in corporate banking.
Thank you for your reply!
Why then would you rather be in ECM than in Corporate Banking?
I prefer the capital markets and there are exit opps, but more so AM or as a desk analyst.
I see. AM would be a cool exit opp in my opinion. Thank you for your input!
Haven't really heard of people doing a continuous exit from corporate banking to PE / AM but definitely from ECM.
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