Business Advisory, Financial Consulting, Valuation, etc?

So after deciding that 90+ hour work weeks are not something that I can do, I have been looking at other career paths, specifically valuation, business advisory, and financial consulting. The bad part is that I'm having a hard time finding firms that do this sort of work, so far I've been looking at Duff & Phelps Valuation, Houlihan Lokey Valuation, Stout Risius Ross Valuation, and a boutique IP valuation firm.

Are there other firms that do work similar to ibanking (I realize that they aren't 100% the same) or other areas that I should be looking into? I really enjoy the financial and valuation part of business but really hate accounting so I'm trying to stay away from TAS, plus I've heard that TAS out of undergrad, at least at the Big 4 is nearly impossible. I have been googling financial consulting as well, but looks as if this falls under the broad umbrella of Management Consulting?

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NebraskaHoosier

So after deciding that 90+ hour work weeks are not something that I can do, I have been looking at other career paths, specifically valuation, business advisory, and financial consulting. The bad part is that I'm having a hard time finding firms that do this sort of work, so far I've been looking at Duff & Phelps Valuation, Houlihan Lokey Valuation, Stout Risius Ross Valuation, and a boutique IP valuation firm.

Are there other firms that do work similar to ibanking (I realize that they aren't 100% the same) or other areas that I should be looking into? I really enjoy the financial and valuation part of business but really hate accounting so I'm trying to stay away from TAS, plus I've heard that TAS out of undergrad, at least at the Big 4 is nearly impossible. I have been googling financial consulting as well, but looks as if this falls under the broad umbrella of Management Consulting?

Almost every accounting firm has a valuation function (so obviously Big 4). That said if you work for an accounting firm doing valuations you will also be tasked with auditing other valuation work from other firms (which can be interesting at times).

But if you want to do strictly valuations you will need to look for boutique firms - the ones you mentioned. What region are you located at since boutiques are typically regional?

Here are some national ones that I can think of off the top of my head: -CBIZ -American Appraisal -FTI -VRC -AccuVal -Great American

 
NebraskaHoosier

I'm looking into Chicago based firms, and trying to get more into pre-deal / fairness opinion work than auditing, which is why I'm shying away from Big 4

It's going to be pretty difficult to do valuations and focus soley on fairness opinions. Fairness opinions are much more of an ancillary service provided and I would consider that more an exception rather than the rule. This is highly dependent on the MD/BD.

In my experiebce big 4 usually get more of these "pre-deal" projects.

 

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