Which Big 4 is better to potentially break into IB?

Hey there, quick question for those working with ex-accountants, which of the big 4 alumni do you see the most within IB?

Im from a Canadian target majoring in finance and economics with mediocre GPA, probably gonna start with a big 4 in Asia since i can't manage to land a front office gig for now.

Plan is to work couple years, hopefully get into the advisory side and go back to B school in the States.

I was wondering if it makes a difference which big 4 you come from?

Ill be starting in Taiwan, in terms of client market share 1. Deloitte - has a Financial Advisory Group, mid market IB 2. KPMG-has a corporate finance group, mid market, not the due diligent stuff 3. PwC-sounds like most ex accountant bankers come from PwC.... 4.EY-heard a lot of bad stuff about them in the region

19 Comments
 

I don't have any knowledge about the big four acct firms or anything, but if you look at the Bill's Buzz section at the Vlaad & Company website (CDN headhunter), it seems like most people that got into ibanking after a year or so of accounting came from PwC for reason...

 

From what I've seen, people seem to more highly regard Ernst and Young/PWC than the other two, and KPMG is generally seen as the "worst" of the Big 4. I am, however, not as experienced as most guys here so take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

If you want to do IB, i would recommend you switching into a local bank after a couple years at the big4. It will be very easy to do that with Cathay or Chinatrust or something, then go do an MBA. it position yourself better for banking post MBA

 
Best Response

my worry is how the local shops' reputation are seen along w my MBA application, Taiwan isn't exactly known as a financial capital, and Im not sure how much deal flow they get there with big banks like MS, GS, and Citi in having a big presence in the region. nerveless i will look into it when the time comes.

My plan is to transfer into FAS of Deloitte( Currently the plan is to join Deloitte), i think the valuation modeling skill will be very valuable. The HR told me they usually recruit from the pool of audit ppl with a year or two of exp.

Hopefully my finance/eco background along with my cfa level 1 will give me an edge over the folks with accounting background.

 
TobleroneWhy not E&Y? I always thought that it was EY, PwC, then Deloitte, then KPMG. Then again, they are all the same, lol.

Rounder may have been referring to the post above him which discussed how it may difficult to break into Deloitte's transaction advisory group since apparently you have to have worked in Deloitte's audit or forensic accounting groups for several years first.

On the other hand, E&Y recruits people for its Transaction Advisory group straight from undergrad

 

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