Hi everyone! Long term user, but new account here to preserve my anonymity.
My background:
I'm currently a private equity analyst at one of the funds in the topic title. As some of our processes are slowing down, I wanted to check back into the forum and give back to the community. I still remember when I was a sophomore in college not knowing what a DCF or EV/EBITDA multiple was (I was a science major back then). This community pointed me to the right resources, and I eventually landed an internship in finance my junior year. I converted my summer experience into a FT role at a Mega-Fund out of college with some help from my network. I can say that I wouldn't be here today without this community. As a result, I'm going to be doing a Q&A to give back; I will be answering periodically until work starts to pick up again. **I've also been working on a book/manuscript for a couple of my friends who wanted to learn about finance, but don't have any knowledge of the area. My hope for the book was to give an overview on basic accounting and valuation in a simple manner. If anyone is interested in giving me some feedback, please PM me! Also, I know that PE recruiting is largely over, but check out the [WSO private equity course](http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/guide/private-equi…). It will give you more than enough information for the tests you'll be getting.
Clean toilets?
Hahah very clean toilets. Although I do like taking a #2 on another floor.
No wonder the toilets are clean if people are shitting on floors. Savages.
Hahahah wish I could give you a SB for this. V good.
(For students/prospective IBers, in case you guys don't know, toilets at IBs are usually filthy and splattered with 'bits')
So true. IBers definitely shit angry.
This is true of every office building, not just IBs. The trick is to avoid floors with people that are working jobs requiring high stress (i.e. sales), long hours (i.e. lawyers), or poor diets (software engineers).
Head on down to HR, accounting, or marketing and you'll be just fine.
1) The valuation teams are more like the middle office jobs you see at the bulge bracket banks. They don't work on transactions and there's a lot of reporting that goes on behind the scene. That being said, they do report to the CFO of the group and have exposure to senior management. They are the one's that communicate to investor relations when an IRR number needs to be reported.
Investment teams are only working on transactions - they do some reporting, but they send all that information to the valuation teams who aggregate. They work on ICMs and pitch deals constantly. At the higher level, you see more interaction between the valuation team and investment team - not so much at the junior level.
2) For the most part, I've only seen 2 year banking and PE -> MF PE moves. In the real estate group, it's more common to see someone move from a brokerage house (Eastdil) to PE.
3) A lot of times I'm working on manipulating data for my MD so that they can talk to the banker or off market buyer. Some of the analysis is interesting, but similar to investment banking there's still process oriented tasks. Although not as pronounced in banking, there's a good amount of emphasis on aesthetics / presentation.
I'm currently working on a couple of deals (acq. and dispos) and running different analysis / scenarios for each one. I also interact regularly with the CEO, CFO of our portfolio companies. And it's always fun to talk to an MD at a Bulge Bracket too when I need additional information.
You want to break into the buy side ASAP so I would say if you can convert your MM PE internship then do it. I know it's kind of rare, but it can be done.
My comp is similar to an elite boutique
I disagree with this. Unless it's a top MM fund with an established analyst program you'll get MUCH better training at a BB. At most MM funds the "analyst" really only does admin tasks while the deal team really starts at associate. You'll also get a lot more deal reps at a BB.
1) Boxers, hands down 2) Both ;) 3) Boobs 4) Bourbon 5) Nah, we don't overpay for things and we leverage our reputation in closing things quickly and creating workarounds if roadblocks comes up
That's a bold response
oh my god - I can't believe you actually answered that question!
I encounter this all the time. When this happens and if your MD/VP hasn't already told you about which method they prefer, think critically about the formula in question and why both ways could possibly be 'correct'. If you truly understand corporate finance and modeling, you should be able to think about the purpose of the formula in the context of your own analysis, and determine which method makes more sense. As long as you can articulate a reason for doing it one way versus the other, you will be OK. If people disagree, they will just tell you to do it a different way and move on.
Just don't get too cute. Some formulas are pretty standard and shouldn't be fucked with. Also, never trust anything on investopedia - I've found glaring mistakes in several of their articles.