Investment banking as a dentist ?

I am a 23 year old student that did pre-med/dentistry in college to appease my parents and family (dad and brother are antheisologists ). My passion has always been business and international investing. I have little to no interest in the sciences but pushed through the bullshit to graduate.

I applied to dental school and got wait listed for a year. In that year I decided to learn about material that actually interests me. I signed up for a professional MBA and completed it in one year (was a full time student and took double the recommended course load). I absolutely loved it . It was the first time in my higher education experience I actually enjoyed the material and I was learning.

Anyways, I applied for dental school again during that time and got accepted. I am currently in my first year of dental school and absolutely HATE it. It is the least interesting shit I have seen in my life. WHO THE FUCK IS PASSIONATE ABOUT TEETH! Anyways, I am not going to drop out and am set on finishing the degree. I am wondering is it possible to work as a dentist 2 days a week while the rest at an investment banking firm. Am I competitive? While I am in dental school what can I do to learn about investment banking ? I try to read the Economist and HBR daily (while in class lol) . And if you're wondering, I am AVERAGE in dental school and will stay that way.

 

The grass is always greener my friend. You may hate being in dentistry, but what if you hate being in finance? You should read Monkey Business, and talk to some people in IBD to gain some perspective of the field.

Finance really isn't all that cracked out to be - but I would take a banking gig, probably over everything (engineering, math, accounting, poliscience) but medicine and MAYBE law.

 

You need to grow up and be thankful for what you have. Following your "passions" is a young man's farce, do you really think the CEO of a fiberglass company has a hard on for fiberglass manufacturing? Correct me if I'm wrong but dentists bring in about 150k and work 3.5 days a week. Very nice work/life balance if you ask me.

Just don't get bogged down by a woman that will spend your cash and leave you with an alimony payment. That kind of shit can only be afforded by oncologists and surgeons.

 

Thank you for your opinion . I do agree with you that i need to be much more thankful and i will . Ya an average dentist that is working for someone else makes 150 K and the Hours are good. If you own your own practise then the revenue is variable . Seen guys make 200k low end to 1.5 million. A lot of factors are involved tho.

And thanks for the heads up about the woman. Last thing i need is a gold digger screwing up my future .

 

It sounds like dentistry is more lucrative than I initially thought, if you really want to mint money it sounds like you are in a field with the potential for you to do so. My last thought on the subject, most of the money in this world is made by doing unsexy shit. If you've ever read an offering memorandum and wondered what life was like for those who made it, you'd already know that. As far as women goes, go foreign and the rest will follow.

 
ArcherVice:

It sounds like dentistry is more lucrative than I initially thought, if you really want to mint money it sounds like you are in a field with the potential for you to do so. My last thought on the subject, most of the money in this world is made by doing unsexy shit. If you've ever read an offering memorandum and wondered what life was like for those who made it, you'd already know that. As far as women goes, go foreign and the rest will follow.

Genuine question: why foreign? I think there's a lesson to be learned there.

 

Depends what you are looking for, but all too often an American guy will end up with a wife who mainly stays at home which generally leads to divorce. In those cases you could find a foreign girl that looks like a supermodel 10-15 years your younger (assuming you're mid 30s or 40s) who will cook, clean, take care of everything house related, do all the errands, is good to go 24/7 and will never leave you. Basically those girls don't feel entitled to your money, but the understanding in those cultures is that you provide and where the home is concerned they serve. It's a cultural and security thing. That's true in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and pretty much everywhere that cosmopolitan isn't widely disseminated.

As far as driven career women go, personally I just like foreign women more. More interesting, more open, closer families, well traveled, multiple languages, less ignorant and they appreciate things more wholeheartedly. Which probably won't make sense until you experience it. To be clear... there are plenty of great American women who can be all of those things on both sides of the spectrum.

It just put things in a different light when you know you can pull any supermodel look-alike with ease, or put in the same work and find someone extremely interesting. There is power in knowing you have tons of great options. Many people settle down because they are unsure/scared if they'll find someone else, takeaway that fear and you won't catch yourself in a bad relationship for very long, if ever.

 

Ha-ha-ha! I am a foreign woman and I'm not going to clean shit after somebody even if they are Donald Trump or Warren Buffett or whoever is the biggest dick in the world right now! I don't know where you got the notion that it's a "cultural" thing - it rather depends on their level of intelligence. Many of them think that living off someone's pocket is in a fact a great achievement in life, that's probably where this stereotype about "poor foreign girls" comes from. And they aren't all "super model looking" - trust me on that! Btw, I was very surprised to read the second paragraph - it turns out not everyone thinks that "foreign = gold digger." As far as this thread goes, I must say that two degrees will never hurt, especially if one is for dentist industry.

 

Normally I wouldn't bite, but I'm on my second bourbon and about to chomp down on a Gyro with a side of meatballs; so I find myself overwhelmed with writers fuel and nostalgia of cranking out essays the night before they were due.

Allow me to expand on what you have clearly glossed over and skipped for the sake of argumentation. Your knowledge that this site even exists, having access to reliable internet, ability to read and write fluently in English -- precludes you from belonging to the group to which I was referring. It's very common to find western Europeans that can't read, write or speak in English and I wouldn't put them into that category either. Apparently, my hopefully humorous allusion: "pretty much everywhere that cosmopolitan isn't widely disseminated" went unnoticed or was misunderstood (sad face). I'm also doubly sad that the crux of my contention went completely over your head, which was: For marriages that end up with a "housewife" arrangement, finding a wife from one of those countries is usually a better route.

Contrary to your opinion, the difference is very cultural, between more and less developed countries. In the countries to which I was referring, you will rarely, if ever, see a girl dating a guy younger than 30. They have very little in the way of security, so they understandably take the long view with whomever they get involved with. Now this doesn't mean that meaningful and intimate relationships can't form, it's just more upfront in their culture than ours. The quality women in those countries don't just walk up and say "let me suck your dick and you pay for my rent", the dating realm is eerily similar to the western world. The divide lies in your "value", a westerner is viewed as more educated, substantially wealthier and associated with being better than their local competition in virtually every way. Think about the most attractive girl you know, and think about the last ten guys you talked to, probably none of them have a shot with her. The opposite is true abroad. To be clear, I'm not suggesting you can just hop on a plane and everything you want gets served up on a platter, Asian languages and Portuguese are not easy to be fluent in, neither is learning the ins and outs of a given culture.

Women in both developed and undeveloped countries value a man's wealth highly when determining who to date and get married to. By your own admission, a woman like you, if I understand your sentiment correctly, wouldn't be caught dead doing anything domestic no matter how much money he made... I won't speculate about you personally so don't take the following as an ad hominem; but most western women are just as happy to spend your money (often more than those foreign girls) without feeling it necessary to repay/reciprocate with anything other than their existing in close proximity to you. You are after all "entitled" to it, aren't you?

Please don't mistake me as some jaded woman-hating-misogynist that views women as possessions rather than partners. We were talking about a "housewife" situation, I believe that women with a different mindset are generally happier with that arrangement than their western counterparts. In turn, this means someone should look abroad if that is what they are interested in. As far as other relationship dynamics go... I still say go foreign.

Personally, I find nothing more attractive than independent and driven women, of the foreign variety. Sadly in those countries, domestic duties aren't in the plus column. However, being more well traveled, knowing multiple languages, being just as driven in their careers and the finer points that differentiate US culture to Europe's are why I have my preference. Obviously, there is an abundance of foreign women that do not fit that bill but there are substantially more American women that don't either. I could give you a crash course on those differences between Europe and the USofA but I am no Hemingway and I prefer to drink my third bourbon while catching up on something humorous rather than rambling on about an insignificant and meaningless point of view to an anonymous foreign woman who perverts even written word when she writes "ha-ha-ha" rather than "hahaha." Are there no boundaries to your perversions? :-) lol

 
ArcherVice:

Normally I wouldn't bite, but I'm on my second bourbon and about to chomp down on a Gyro with a side of meatballs; so I find myself overwhelmed with writers fuel and nostalgia of cranking out essays the night before they were due.

Allow me to expand on what you have clearly glossed over and skipped for the sake of argumentation. Your knowledge that this site even exists, having access to reliable internet, ability to read and write fluently in English -- precludes you from belonging to the group to which I was referring. It's very common to find western Europeans that can't read, write or speak in English and I wouldn't put them into that category either. Apparently, my hopefully humorous allusion: "pretty much everywhere that cosmopolitan isn't widely disseminated" went unnoticed or was misunderstood (sad face). I'm also doubly sad that the crux of my contention went completely over your head, which was: For marriages that end up with a "housewife" arrangement, finding a wife from one of those countries is usually a better route.

Contrary to your opinion, the difference is very cultural, between more and less developed countries. In the countries to which I was referring, you will rarely, if ever, see a girl dating a guy younger than 30. They have very little in the way of security, so they understandably take the long view with whomever they get involved with. Now this doesn't mean that meaningful and intimate relationships can't form, it's just more upfront in their culture than ours. The quality women in those countries don't just walk up and say "let me suck your dick and you pay for my rent", the dating realm is eerily similar to the western world. The divide lies in your "value", a westerner is viewed as more educated, substantially wealthier and associated with being better than their local competition in virtually every way. Think about the most attractive girl you know, and think about the last ten guys you talked to, probably none of them have a shot with her. The opposite is true abroad. To be clear, I'm not suggesting you can just hop on a plane and everything you want gets served up on a platter, Asian languages and Portuguese are not easy to be fluent in, neither is learning the ins and outs of a given culture.

Women in both developed and undeveloped countries value a man's wealth highly when determining who to date and get married to. By your own admission, a woman like you, if I understand your sentiment correctly, wouldn't be caught dead doing anything domestic no matter how much money he made... I won't speculate about you personally so don't take the following as an ad hominem; but most western women are just as happy to spend your money (often more than those foreign girls) without feeling it necessary to repay/reciprocate with anything other than their existing in close proximity to you. You are after all "entitled" to it, aren't you?

Please don't mistake me as some jaded woman-hating-misogynist that views women as possessions rather than partners. We were talking about a "housewife" situation, I believe that women with a different mindset are generally happier with that arrangement than their western counterparts. In turn, this means someone should look abroad if that is what they are interested in. As far as other relationship dynamics go... I still say go foreign.

Personally, I find nothing more attractive than independent and driven women, of the foreign variety. Sadly in those countries, domestic duties aren't in the plus column. However, being more well traveled, knowing multiple languages, being just as driven in their careers and the finer points that differentiate US culture to Europe's are why I have my preference. Obviously, there is an abundance of foreign women that do not fit that bill but there are substantially more American women that don't either. I could give you a crash course on those differences between Europe and the USofA but I am no Hemingway and I prefer to drink my third bourbon while catching up on something humorous rather than rambling on about an insignificant and meaningless point of view to an anonymous foreign woman who perverts even written word when she writes "ha-ha-ha" rather than "hahaha." Are there no boundaries to your perversions? :-) lol

Usually I don’t see how getting into long online debates can benefit my life in any way and I don’t troll either, but this time I feel like I need to address some of the things you’ve said because you are making claims about the things you don’t know. This is going to be off topic (which I personally hate) so people who are here to find out which of the two evils is better – finance or dentistry – can just skip this post.

“For marriages that end up with a "housewife" arrangement, finding a wife from one of those countries is usually a better route.” – NO. Here it seems like you are contradicting yourself because as I understood from your initial post, finding someone interesting and avoiding bad relationships is a way to go and yet you are suggesting that finding a foreign dog-like creature with an appearance of a super model and a willingness to clean shit like a slave is in fact what a divorced man should do:

“In those cases you could find a foreign girl that looks like a supermodel 10-15 years your younger (assuming you're mid 30s or 40s) who will cook, clean, take care of everything house related, do all the errands, is good to go 24/7 and will never leave you.”

Yes, if you’ve earned a lot of money you can blow however you want to, that’s true. Today you can order whores online just like you buy socks from Amazon. But neither socks nor whores will make you truly happy. How can you be happy with a person with whom you can’t even have a proper conversation?

“In the countries to which I was referring, you will rarely, if ever, see a girl dating a guy younger than 30.” I don’t know who told you that, as I know from my personal experience the young girls (I mean 20-something) actually do date the guys of their age and if they would ever attempt to date some old fart with a big wallet their parents would surely whip their arses if they found out.

Relationship formation is eerily similar? Did you even read what you wrote? I’ll tell you the truth – the dating process is exactly the same. And you aren’t viewed as more educated either, even calculus you had in high school was what I had in 8th and 9th grades and the topics we learn in high school you guys take only when you go to college. And just because “underdeveloped” countries don’t have large financial markets and securities exchanges doesn’t mean that people who live there are hopelessly dumb.

I don’t understand what kind of “domestic work” you are referring to. A man who can financially support his unemployed wife and a few kids can easily afford a housekeeper.

About the word “foreign” – your entire nation is by itself foreign to this continent because unlike Ancient Greeks or Chinese for example, who’ve been living on their land for thousands of years you guys showed up here relatively recently – about 400 years ago I believe.
Reliable internet? Yeah, xfnity works wonders for me, thanks!

As for “ha-ha-ha” – instead of picking on these dashes better look at the grammar of some supposedly “native English speakers” on this website.

P.S. Yes, I am a pervert and there are no boundaries to my perversions, who did you figure that out?

 
Best Response

If you spent less time trying to be offended and more time working on your comprehension there wouldn't be a "debate." The seething ignorance from your posts is both enlightening and annoying. You have once again skimmed over my post, especially in regards to whom and what criteria I was referring to as "foreign", and taken every opportunity to find offense to anything I have said, irrespective of its true meaning. Sadly I will not be aided by bourbon or meatballs... scones and tea will have to suffice. Hence the brevity.

Edit: I had a longer post but I realized it's pointless, as there is nothing I could say that would entice you to read rather than skim or consider rather than dismiss. You are hell bent on imposing your demeaning logorrheic screeds to this thread, and I'm just uninterested in reading them.

 
Tanya_L:

Ha-ha-ha! I am a foreign woman and I'm not going to clean shit after somebody even if they are Donald Trump or Warren Buffett or whoever is the biggest dick in the world right now! I don't know where you got the notion that it's a "cultural" thing - it rather depends on their level of intelligence. Many of them think that living off someone's pocket is in a fact a great achievement in life, that's probably where this stereotype about "poor foreign girls" comes from. And they aren't all "super model looking" - trust me on that! Btw, I was very surprised to read the second paragraph - it turns out not everyone thinks that "foreign = gold digger."
As far as this thread goes, I must say that two degrees will never hurt, especially if one is for dentist industry.

You seem like a very pleasant woman

[quote=mbavsmfin]I don't wear watches bro. Because it's always MBA BALLER time! [/quote]
 
ArcherVice:

You need to grow up and be thankful for what you have. Following your "passions" is a young man's farce, do you really think the CEO of a fiberglass company has a hard on for fiberglass manufacturing? Correct me if I'm wrong but dentists bring in about 150k and work 3.5 days a week. Very nice work/life balance if you ask me.

Just don't get bogged down by a woman that will spend your cash and leave you with an alimony payment. That kind of shit can only be afforded by oncologists and surgeons.

are you fucking kidding me, 3.5 days a week?! and I thought PWM had a great lifestyle

 

Thanks i agree i need to be more thankful but i worked my ass off to be in this position . I understand that its not worth risking my dental career thats why i am trying to hedge risk by first completing dental school. I was thinking i could work as a dentist for 2 days a week and then the rest of the time work for a firm. And if the investment banking world isn't for me then i can just go dentistry full time. I will be 26 when i graduate so i feel i have a few years to try this out. My question is whether firms would actually hire someone like me. Should I be sending my resume to all these firms a year before i graduate dental school ? How could i make myself more competitive against people who are business backgrounds from ivy league schools .

 

Leaving aside the difficulty in getting into IB for anyone, you can't work another job while doing IB even if it's 2 days per week unless you can magically add another 1-2 days to the week. You easily work 6, if not 7, days per week in IB as an analyst and you couldn't tell your associate/VP that you can't do X, Y or Z by Monday morning because you have another job.

 

Oh damn . well that is really unfortunate. Can you give me an example of an average day or even week as an analyst at an investment bank? Are you familiar of any major "dental" stocks or companies? is it a serious field in investment banking or is it just lumped with healthcare and biotechnology .

 
sdweik:

Oh damn . well that is really unfortunate. Can you give me an example of an average day or even week as an analyst at an investment bank? Are you familiar of any major "dental" stocks or companies? is it a serious field in investment banking or is it just lumped with healthcare and biotechnology .

Search this site. There are thousands of posts about the life of an analyst. But to boil it down, you work constantly, late at night, all night and pretty much all weekend (although there's a push by some IB's to get one day off per week but I don't know how that's working out). Basically the lifestyle blows. If you can make somewhere between $150k-$1.5MM I'd do that all day long.

I'm not in healthcare so my knowledge is somewhat limited in the space but I can't think of any public dentistries. Maybe some of the insurers?

 

I am assuming this is a troll... In the instance OP is serious, IB analysts work 75-100 hours a week with average weeks being 80-85+ hours... There are 168 hours in a week, if you're cleaning teeth for 20 of them you would have roughly a little more than 60 hours left to sleep, eat and shit... Assuming you just love business and international markets so much that you decide to give her a shot, you'll first have to find a firm that can (and will) accommodate this... Given the fact that there are constantly kids posting on this site with shit like; "Hey Guys - new monkey here, I am graduating from (State U) in the spring. I have a 3.5 majoring in finance or econ, etc... Do I have a chance to break into banking?" and the fact of the matter is maybe 25% (likely way lower) get decent FT offers. On top of this, your dentist patients would literally have to schedule their appointments at like 4am haha.

I am not trying to be a dick, but if you seriously want to get into IB, drop everything you're doing right now (dental school) and start networking like a beast. Get on linkedin, find people who went to your UG and are working in the industry or related industries (companies that are active in M&A - those people might know some bankers). Get the WSO modeling guides, put the Economist away and start reading about specific deals that your target firms are doing (MM satellite or MM regional boutiques) so that you can speak intelligently about them if you happen to get an opportunity. Figure out why a deal was Accretive for the acquirer. Spend some time on this site understanding the language of finance (as stupid as that sounds). Also, if you simply just love business and investing, know that IB is not the end all be all. It is going to be EXTREMELY difficult to land a job in IB at this point. However, PWM is certainly within the realm of very, very realistic possibilities. Frankly, you just need to do some research. Reach out to people on this site. Go read the shit brofessor has written on PWM, go read the "Day in the Life of an IB analyst."

Ultimately, if you "HATE" dental work, I would recommend that you pivot now. I happen to know dentists that make more than $1mm a year, and whether they love, like, or simply put up with the job, I have no idea. I do know that if you love business you have the potential to make $1mm per year (or at least be in the range of typical dentist ~$200/yr) in the industry whether it be PWM, IB, S&T, ER, etc... Therefore, logic would suggest that you would be happier with that than making an equal sum of money in a job that you will hate.

At the end of the day, this is not HLF. I have no clue where you got the idea that this is something you could kind of do on the side... This is one of the most ridiculously difficult industries in the world to break into! Ignore any harshness threaded throughout this comment, nothing personal is intended (obviously...I don't know you). Good luck. Quit school. Don't do drugs.

 

After reading these comments , I am leaning to the direction that investment banking won't working with dentistry. I won't quit school , i am already pretty committed financial. I plan to just invest internationally in my free time without being bound to a job or anything.

 

Lol at don't do drugs. Yea I'm extremelyyyyyy new to this forum and almost done with my MBA and wouldn't imagine that you can convince an investment bank to basically hire you part-time. I've read quite a bit on here so that's where my opinion derives from. But I will say, if you hate dentistry, don't do it. I don't mean to be too emotionally in touch (I have a sense that there aren't TOO many females on here) but as cliche as it is-- life is way too short to spend most of your life doing something you absolutely hate. Although I am looking into IB, it sounds like mission almost impossible and god awful so far. lol Working 75-100 hrs a week??? Yea... No. We will see though...

 

"Who the fuck is passionate about teeth?" Quote of the week, friend.

I'm not here to bash you, I wish you the best and hope it works out for you but you're probably going from the most cushy work/life relative to pay to the worst.

 

Oh young grasshopper, you are seriously misguided. People are passionate about their job because of the challenge and personal growth that is involved, not necessarily because of the subject matter. Investment banking analysts sleep three hours a night and spend most of their time moving around commas on power point slides and later moving them back to their initial positions.

Start your own practice down the line and you can be involved in both dentistry and business. Do personal investing if you like companies.

 

If it's 3.5 days a week nothing is preventing you, for example, from making a serious effort on the side to learn about investing, play around with simulators and then with real money. Probably way more fun than doing IB as an analyst. Then if your dentist job revenue starts at 6 figures and you are as passionate about markets as you are saying, that should enable you to become independently wealthy and really focus on managing your capital in a few years. Or maybe eventually you understand dentistry is not that bad, and then you can start your own practice and indulge your business interest this way. Plenty of ways to skin a cat, but I don't think doing IB and dentistry part time is one of them, unless perhaps IB gig is an unpaid internship at some tiny boutique.

 

Sounds like you have a decent sense of and a good appreciation for business. Combine that with your drive, and you could have a very successful and financially rewarding dental career. Much of success in dentistry is not about technical skills but rather business acumen. As a dental student myself, I see that many dental students lack these traits which are invaluable to their careers. A career in dentistry is a lot more than looking into mouths and staring at teeth all day. You can find a lot of reward growing your practice/business as well as pursuing other ventures outside of dentistry due to the flexible hours. You will not be able to practice as a dentist dentist and be a part-time banker. Sure people use "dental appointments" as an excuse to miss work and go to interviews or whatever, but missing time because you have dental appointments as a dentist, just will not work.

 

My dentist is a baller, he drives a nice car.. That asshole is always out of his office by 4:30 pm and never in the office before 10:00am... he doesn't do very much work, shows up to tell me how much I owe and how much I am going to owe after his assistants work on me during the next visit.

I don't know him out side of his office.. But he seems more happy than my finance friends

FYI I have not read one post of this thread

 

Someone I know has a degree in medicine and has signed with GS/MS/JP IBD to start FT next year. Needless to say he had a lot of reading up to do on the subject.

If you are serious about the business I´d suggest the following reading list: 1) Get a FT/WSJ online sub and read up daily (~1hr/day) 2) Vault guide 3) Perella/Rosenbaum IB Valuation: LBO, M&A etc 4) Dealbook (NYTimes)

And if you are REALLY serious about it you may consider one of those IBD application guides (WSO/BIWS seem to be popular these days)

DYEL
 

Its baffling that the majority of responses on this thread are advising this kid to stick with the career path he has no interest in over one he is very interested and passionate about.

Don't listen to these fucktards; they're stupid and they themselves are pursuing or have pursued the exact career path they're telling you not to pursue.

The bigger issues are: 1. If you're passionate about business thats great, but in order to get to banking its not enough to be passionate about business. You also have to be myopically driven on excelling in every aspect of everything you do. That's who gets into the Wall Street world. Its super competitive, if you're not tuned to that level of RPMs, you're not going to cut it. If you are... well then, fantastic, go for it. You got wait-listed from dental school and just left that on ice for A YEAR!!? You didn't realize this was the preferred path until after you MBA, so its quite surprising that you let your primary career path stagnate for a year while someone else decides your fate. That is not at all the mindset of someone that gets into banking. 2. Practically speaking, what were your grades in UG? Where did you get your MBA? You'll be hard pressed to find a competitive banking candidate that has less than stellar academic credentials and/or a sub-par MBA.

The potential lack of academic credentials doesn't mean you can't get into banking. And neither does the lack of intensity, so long as your new found direction was the spark you needed to ramp your RPMs up to a level acceptable by Wall Street standards.

I make the above two points knowing that I personally lacked the direction and intensity until I (a) realized I wanted to work on Wall Street and (b) learned what it took to earn a spot here. I also severely lacked the academic pedigree, so like I said before, the late blooming isn't necessarily a deal breaker. Its also funny someone mentioned Monkey Business. Despite the fact that this book was known to paint banking in a negative light and depicting it as a not very desirable career path, this book is one of the very reasons I wanted to get into finance. If you are passionate and intellectually curious about the markets, M&A, business... and you possess a drive and desire to "beat" other people and/or are encouraged by watching other people have difficulty with something... then absolutely go for it.

 

Try to do well in dental school (must try since you got waitlisted first time) and specialize in something (doesn't have to be oral surgery, but like ortho, perio, etc.). Your dad is rich enough where he can help you set up your own practice quicker than most people in massive debt hole. Work will be interesting, you'll make more than enough, hours will be better. And if you already signed up for some MBA that you completed in a year with overload courses, you already burned your legit IB bridge. So you might well give up on that. I know enough about both ends (have like 7-8 family and friends who are dentist, and well I'm hanging out in my BB IB office right now).

 

Why Africa? I'm going to assume you have a sentimental attachment to Africa, but that's one of the riskiest places on earth to do business. In the past I've done things there with previous firms and it's a very difficult place to do business if you're not from there/live there or have extremely trusted people on the ground (and most people on the ground are out to screw you, so it should be your brother or someone who's sworn a blood oath to you). When oil majors can get screwed over, any regular Joe should expect to. We had some success on deals but they were very niche deals with specific circumstances (government related in countries with relatively honest governments, and honest is very relative to African governments). And I'm not a pussy: I've done business in India, China and Vietnam among other places but Africa is tough and scares me. Aside from getting screwed out of money, you can actually lose your life there.

We acquired a company from a very successful African American businessman who wanted to do business in Africa for the obvious reasons and since he had become an LP with us we said we'd look into a few deals people had shown him and make a few calls. I have a friend who's at the IFC who covers sub saharan Africa and another friend who's ex-CIA and works at a specialized frontier PE firm who does Africa so I called them to ask about these deals. They just said stay away, and the deals were well packaged and looked good at first glance. And our investor did stay away. He figured it was better to establish scholarships for African Americans and Africans to go to school in the US than it was to try to navigate the continent and be fleeced of money.

Maybe in a decade or two (or 3,4,5...) things will change but Africa's not a place to cut your teeth on the investing/business world. There are some funds you can invest in but they will be completely passive.

 

Omnis officiis voluptas aut. Sit rerum libero similique veniam. Placeat ullam nemo totam in repudiandae deleniti velit facilis. Rerum dignissimos explicabo numquam rerum qui. Earum sit aut qui alias.

Inventore laborum quam quis nemo neque. Autem enim dolores laudantium eveniet. Aut et molestiae commodi qui et. Est voluptatum et unde dolorem mollitia. Perspiciatis numquam fugiat et quo.

 

Totam soluta architecto consectetur natus. Qui quia non tempora voluptates. Tenetur magnam veniam dolorem molestias impedit autem.

Laboriosam ut natus porro nam qui. Beatae blanditiis architecto harum. Sit maiores sit eum doloribus. Facere quia voluptas consequatur molestiae veritatis.

Repellendus placeat voluptatem exercitationem non sit eum ducimus et. Repellendus hic vitae sunt nam architecto.

Cumque quae hic deserunt similique culpa quaerat. In et aspernatur est non voluptas. Consequatur non ut voluptas deleniti et id est.

 

Voluptas aut dolorem sit. Ad dignissimos non omnis laborum. Ipsa dicta voluptatibus repellat reprehenderit ullam voluptates. Harum laborum facere consequatur sed tempora.

Assumenda aliquam dolorum et saepe odio voluptates ex. Temporibus tenetur possimus et veniam deleniti et earum. Nam odit aut est qui ut consequatur et.

Quis incidunt numquam rem quas corporis corporis ea. Adipisci nam ducimus perferendis odio aut.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (85) $262
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (65) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (197) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (143) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
5
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
98.9
6
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
7
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
8
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
9
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
10
Linda Abraham's picture
Linda Abraham
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”