What is MF PE undergrad recruiting like?
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Do you get asked about your freshman internship? If so what type of internship would be best to get? (IB/PE/HF)
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Are stock pitches important? I know being able to analyze a stock could be important but wondering if having a few pitches ready is important.
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How do you prep for cases?
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Is it similar to banking technicals but additional LBO stuff?
Just looking advice on how to prepare because it seems like there are so many people with high GPAs and interest in finance.
1. Quite frankly, most people would be lucky if they get a freshman internship, and most of them don't have relevant experience.
2. Stock pitches are important but not that detailed. Just know the basics in financial reporting
3. You prep for cases by buying the WSO guides. Jk, just watch youtube videos on case studies and you'll be good
4. Pretty much, and make sure you have knowledge on secondary and tertiary buyouts, but not all .
Good luck on the interviews but don't worry about others with high GPAs. If you go through college with a 3.25+ GPA and at least one internship, that's still a very productive college experience.
What kind of YouTube videos? Any recommendations?
I'll differ a bit from the other commenter because I recently went through MF PE recruiting (and received multiple offers) as a student at a semi-target and had a slightly different experience. Here's my take on your questions:
1. Yes, you do get asked about your freshman internship. Every item on your resume will be asked about if you make it to a final round. Any freshman internship related to finance is fine. I personally did management consulting but knew others who did boutique IB/PE or small AM gigs.
2. Stock pitches are unlikely but you do need to know everything about the DCF/LBO and what makes a company a good investment for different types of investors.
3. It's impossible to tell what case you will get ahead of time. The best way to prepare is to know everything about the financial statements and valuation and how they translate to a company. I know it's not the most helpful answer but my personal belief is that you just have to have an exceptionally sound understanding of business and finance to get through it.
4. Less similar to BB technicals, more similar to EB with a lot of emphasis on LBO specifics. In my experience, it was a mix of standard IB and then paper LBO/LBO technicals. There were a lot of really niche debt and equity capital markets-related questions which were more similar to EB recruiting too. My advice would just be to prep anything related to the DCF and LBO heavily.
What type of materials helped you?
Wall street prep and training the street resources were really helpful. I also did a lot of practice with LBO and DCF models that you can find online. I find those more helpful than the standard 400IB questions because they force you to understand how the models actually work when different factors change. Plus in my experience, MF PE technicals questions are only about 20% 400IB questions and 80% just answering really specific questions about valuations.
This is good. Things were a way less competitive back then so maybe now you need all this knowledge and experience to really have a shot.
Massive congrats on the MF offer, read it in another thread! Hope you kill it next summer.
Any advice on formulating why X firm + coming up with LBO pitches + Understanding a firm's portco/past deal? Thanks so much!
Thanks, I appreciate it!
1. My advice for the why X firm question would be to go for a pretty in-depth answer with 2-3 strong contentions for why you want to join the firm and you should spend around 30 seconds on each. If you can call out specific anecdotes you have heard from current employees and mention stories you have heard about firm culture through networking, that also helps your answer a lot.
2. For coming up with LBO pitches I think it is best to go with an industry you are an expert in. When I consulted for my freshman internship I consulted for an industrials company, so all of my LBO pitches were based on industrial firms. Once you have an industry chosen I would also look at past LBOs in that industry and try to understand the logic behind the deal and valuation.
3. For understanding a firm's past deals I would recommend looking through their website as well as any company filings. If it's a big enough deal or portco, there will likely be research reports available that you can read from analysts on the street that will also provide a lot of insight.
Hope that was helpful!
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