Excel hasn't been around nearly as long as investment banking and investing in general. Anyone know what took place prior to the excel financial model?
Trending Content - Investment Banking Forum
| +178 | Americas M&A League Table Q2 Updated | 73 | 9h |
| +132 | New Article: Dramatic Slide as UBS #22 (US) & New Leadership Desperately Needed | 26 | 18m |
| +107 | Restructuring: Anti-climactic Experience | 26 | 7h |
| +74 | A COMPLETE GUIDE TO SUMMER INTERNSHIP RECRUITING | 12 | 1d |
| +73 | IB Net Worth / Savings Check | 29 | 1h |
| +51 | Boutique firm wants access to my LinkedIn? | 40 | 1d |
| +39 | Investment Banking is Hard | 17 | 19h |
| +31 | PWP vs BofA | 23 | 2h |
| +24 | Who pays the highest right now? | 14 | 2h |
| +21 | Big 4 Transaction diligence (FDD) vs Valuations and modeling for goal to get in IB | 5 | 4d |
Career Resources
they had a big roulette wheel of numbers, then they cut off a chicken's head and tossed it in the wheel. whichever number the chicken head landed on was the valuation for the company
where do you think the term spreadsheets comes from? long before there was excel, there were sheets of paper...sheets "spread" across a binding, in book form.
You can do financial models on paper. Sure, can't run the sensitivity analysis as easily, but it can easily be done. Takes longer, but definitely something you can do.
I don't know what they used in banking before Excel, but I remember a partner at a consulting firm I interned at being very nostalgic about something called "Lotus 1-2-3." Evidently that was the first really powerful spreadsheet program for PCs. Came out in the early 80s.
Ahhh, Lotus. It has gone the way of WordPerfect and DOS. So simple, so elegant, and so.....obsolete.
Is it true that at one point in history, M&A and other such functions were a free / cheap service offered by banks to their clients? I was just talking to someone who's been bouncing around the industry for a while, and they said that decades ago, advisory work was not a large part of banks' business. I am only now beginning to learn the history of banking, so if I'm way off mark, my apologies.
some senior guy told me they used lotus back when he was an analyst.
And he said that clients would just say, yeah just pay a 30% premium over share price, naw don't bother with the valuation that's not neccessary.
dream days imho
And given that back then all companies were publicly listed, that worked splendidly.
http://www.amazon.com/Titans-Pioneers-Streets-Acquisitions-Industry/dp/… This book covers how M&A became the centerpiece of IBD.
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Deal-Beyond-Bruce-Wasserstein/dp/0446526428/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305037753&sr=1-2 More of the same but in more detail, written by Bruce Wasserstein himself.
How did investment banking analysts create financial models before the invention of excel? (Originally Posted: 09/14/2011)
Just out of curiosity
spreadsheets
They did it by hand.
Lotus 123
.
they are called "spreadsheets" because you used to have to spread out a long piece of paper and do calculations by hand... they would have the roll up paper, like butcher paper, and roll it out as needed.
Aren't you happy we live in a digital age?
oh, and the calculations were done using a slide rule...
At least back in the day, when you went on vacation, you actually got to take a vacation cause no one could reach you. While technology has sped up communication and facilitated deal making, it has certainly created an "always accessible, suck the life out of you" lifestyle.
VisiCalc was the first computer spreadsheet. An MIT CS major was watching an HBS professor do a spreadsheet on a chalkboard- it took an hour b/c whenever a computation was wrong, everything had to be erased and you'd have to start from the beginning. Hence visicalc was born and computers became a business tool instead of a nerd plaything.
Before Excel, CapIQ, Thomson, Bloomberg, etc. (Originally Posted: 03/27/2008)
I was sitting at my desk today, doing a wonderful transaction comp on CapIQ, and was wondering what the hell did analysts use before these programs? For my own education, anyone out there work at an I-bank in the early 90's before programs like this existed? What about pre-Excel, was your model essentially a legal pad with handwritten financial statements?
Thanks.
When information didn't flow so easily, bankers were much more valuable than they are currently.
Obviously I didn't work in i-banking in the early 90s, but yes, before Excel people either used more primitive programs (Lotus 1-2-3 anyone?) or actual spreadsheets with pencil and paper.
Hard to imagine now...
Aliquam in aliquid nulla rerum voluptates ipsam. Et eum eveniet nihil voluptas optio ratione delectus. Quos omnis aut ut aut.
Culpa adipisci voluptate rerum at rerum illo ipsam. In non non vel at. Aliquam dolorum saepe et sed sit illo. Earum dicta eius sed. Assumenda ut placeat veritatis omnis enim officiis.
Qui excepturi voluptatem quaerat consequatur amet quidem. Iste magni eius et aliquid eos nobis odit soluta. Doloremque qui est minus possimus enim quam quam quae. Nihil natus sed deleniti ea culpa ratione quis. Omnis aperiam dolor voluptate aut similique. Provident eveniet laudantium eum ab dolorem. Et consectetur quas eos consequuntur inventore nulla.
Omnis magni cumque laudantium occaecati. Quis distinctio voluptates error suscipit. Soluta consequatur omnis quia.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Minima corporis architecto quo eligendi aliquam omnis debitis commodi. Dolorem soluta omnis cum et debitis. Velit esse eveniet eum sint eum odio perferendis.
Recusandae veritatis totam non repellat ratione maxime. Facere rerum necessitatibus qui molestias. Quae autem temporibus et quo harum nam qui earum. Ea accusantium omnis ea ratione voluptatem atque est. Consequatur dignissimos perferendis laboriosam voluptates aut modi. Quo earum assumenda est qui et repellendus beatae. Dolor ut placeat atque sit quia nihil nisi. Ipsum nemo non et.