FT - Commercial Bank or Private Bank?

Alright friends, I had the joy of making a brutal career choice today. Brutal, because I could see myself in both positions, and I wasn't totally sure about what I wanted to do. I went with my gut and the choice is made, but I'd still like to hear other thoughts on it.

Here's the deal - interning at a BB in the commercial bank, and somehow got FT offers from the commercial bank & private bank (I talked to them a little through the course of the internship). Long term career goal is to do cross-border M&A, but the M&A market's a bit slow right now and hiring isn't exactly at an all time high (especially given my mediocre resume).

My analysis:

Analyst with the Commercial Bank -
Structure debt (work on new deals)
Perform industry analysis & financial statement analysis
Get client interaction
Get some M&A exposure via debt-funded M&A activity
Get some international exposure via US multi-nationals & subs of foreign multi-nationals

Analyst with the Private Bank -
Prepare client deliverables
Learn to analyze the markets (debt & equity)
Understand portfolio building & portfolio management
Get exposure to high net work individuals
Learn about estate planning & taxes as they apply to super rich people

Which one would you have picked and why?

3 Comments
 
huanleshalemei

If you end goal is M&A, the answer is quite obvious, don't you think?

I thought so, plus there were soft factors (people, culture) that swayed my vote, but I'm not any particular expert so I figured I'd ask. Who knows, I could have gone in the complete wrong direction.

 

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