Lateral hire into IB (ECM)?

Hi all, 

I am currently in an engineering consultancy/advisory firm (few years).

I was recently approached by a firm that works within the ECM space and have asked me to attend a coffee chat.

This is a firm that claims they are more of a VC-Silicon Valley tech funded firm than traditional IB. I am not sure what this means?

Things I wanted to know from you guys are:

What are some questions I should prepare? I am someone who has been out of touch with finance in my undergrad (did a double major), but happy to research.

---- 

Outside of work, I do have an interest in stocks, particularly value investing so I only really care about news that is more relevant to my holdings and my personal interest than just following the markets for the sake of it.

Would appreciate any advice - thank you all.

3 Comments
 

If its entry level, I would expect it will be mostly behavioral stuff and some assessment of your understanding of equity markets and maybe legal knowledge. If they grill you on technicals of accounting or something, that's just on them being out of touch with reality.

Contrary to what WSO would lead you to believe, most interviewers will only grill you on technicals if your background looks like you should know (i.e. Finance major, case comp winner, past IB experience, etc). If your resume doesn't suggest you would know a lot about ECM don't stress about becoming an ECM wizard overnight. Just know the basics like what the 3 financial statements are, general ability of how to read them, and some understanding of relevant ratios.

 
Most Helpful

Redan

If its entry level, I would expect it will be mostly behavioral stuff and some assessment of your understanding of equity markets and maybe legal knowledge. If they grill you on technicals of accounting or something, that's just on them being out of touch with reality.

Contrary to what WSO would lead you to believe, most interviewers will only grill you on technicals if your background looks like you should know (i.e. Finance major, case comp winner, past IB experience, etc). If your resume doesn't suggest you would know a lot about ECM don't stress about becoming an ECM wizard overnight. Just know the basics like what the 3 financial statements are, general ability of how to read them, and some understanding of relevant ratios.

Thank you Redan.

I had thought that much with the technicals, where we'd sit down and then they just blast me with "So how did you perform a LBO in XYZ situation?" and i'd be like uhhh what?

I will try to read into valuation methodologies, how to read the 3-statements in a decent manner, learn about ECM / IB world on a high level basis (how IPO works, etc) and just brush on my "Why finance over engineering?" etc.

Cheers!

 

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