BIG 4 vs Boutique I-Bank : Summer Internship
Hi,
From reading your post, you seem to be very knowledgeable between public accounting and investment banking. I am kind of caught in the middle of two offers. Can you help me out?
I am currently deciding between a summer internship at a boutique investment bank with about 10 people in their office vs BIG 4 in Audit.
My GPA is not that great (a bit below average for banking), but it is my definite goal to get a FT in banking during fall recruiting. I want to know which career would be better given the market and the times we are heading towards.
big 4 vs Boutique investment banking
Working in a audit at a Big 4. If investment banking is the end goal then the choice here is simple. Take the offer in investment banking.
The goal of an internship should be gaining transferable skills. Working in audit will provide little to no transferable skills if your goal is to work in investment banking full time.
Key Takeaways
- Always take the internship with transferable skills
from certified user @nystateofmind"
For anyone hoping to get into banking and considering doing the Big 4 - stay away from audit or tax. They're no good. If you can do TAS, Structured Finance (why in this mkt?), or any other finance-related advisory practice - go for it. But if you have any sort of boutique IB option, that's your choice.
Recommended Reading
If you want to do banking, why would you take an internship with an accounting firm? Go with the investment bank; they likely have contacts you can leverage and the experience of even a boutique is better than auditing some utilities company in Hackensack.
For anyone hoping to get into banking and considering doing the Big 4 - stay away from audit or tax. They're no good. If you can do TAS, Structured Finance (why in this mkt?), or any other finance-related advisory practice - go for it. But if you have any sort of boutique IB option, that's your choice.
related experience is very important
speaking as someone coming from Big 4, now doing corporate finance, and looking at IB - DON'T DO BIG 4!!!!
Think of it this way - you can get a Big 4 position with ease without an internship there (any relevant experience is looked favorably upon), but it is extremely difficult to get a position in IB without prior experience (with some exceptions - pe, whatever). So, just for future possibilities that IB internship opens both doors, Big 4 does not.
That does not even consider the skill set you'll develop in an IB internship vs Big 4. No joke - the most we relied on our interns at the Big 4 was to get our coffee.
ps - I don't get everyone's obsession with being affraid to post the firm they work for (unless theyare saying something controversial or about that firm), but I probably wouldn't post the name of the bank I was still thinking of accepting an offer from.
PM me if you have any other questions. I have several other friends with similiar situations.
Off topic: I would like to thank the users on this site (nystateofmind & dosk to name a few). I found a lot of the comments to be very helpful and informative during banking recruiting and felt adequately prepared for interviews after spending countless hours studying and seeing different variations of interview questions on this site.
Which office of Mercanti group, LA?
Actually I'm not even too familiar with Mercanti Group but just by the fact that it's a boutique investment bank, that's your choice.
It is much, much easier to jump around within investment banking and move up to somewhere bigger vs. getting in from Big 4 anything really. Yes, transaction services is sort of close but it's still not nearly as close as a boutique bank.
Honestly even if the boutique internship turns out to be a disaster and you just do menial tasks, it will still be better for landing ibd jobs vs. Big 4. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but this is a no-brainer: if you have an IBD summer offer, take it!
Big 4 people will tell you that banks are always trying to hire away their employees - do not be fooled, you're smarter than that.
When banks hire people away, they aren't filling front office positions, they want you to be in their Treasury or work for the Controller.
Think of it like this: w/ a low GPA and coming from a semi- or non-target, most BBs are unwilling to take the risk of hiring you. But once a MM or boutique firm pays to train and take you on for the summer, you'd be surprised how willing BBs will be to interview you full-time. They don't want to make that initial investment, but once you prove you can do well and get the FT offer, your chances at the BB improve dramatically.
In IB, it's much tougher to break into the industry than it is to switch firms. So get in wherever you can and leverage that opportunity afterwards.
I am not sure where you are located, but last time I checked Mercanti only had an office in LA. That said, they are a well known group in the area and most bankers at the BBs know who they are (similar to Montgomery & Co.). That would be idea to lateraling in the fall. Regardless though, it will be a tough market and a Big4 would not put you in a ideal position.
mercanti is LA and MN, no NY
They've also got an office in NY
http://www.mercantigroup.com/contact_us.html
I think it's one of those situations where they just have an address rather than actual staff working there. If you look at the team page, which lists all employees down to assistants, phone numbers are only LA and MN area code. I have met some of the Mercanti team and am pretty confident in saying that all operations stem from MN and LA. Didn't mean to get off topic haha
I am sorry, what is TAS?
Tax Advisory Services. One of the most selective internships for the big 4. Last year they had a total of ~13 interns in the SF office... haha numbers sound familiar?
Not Tax Advisory Services but Transaction Advisory Services.
What about Risk Services advisory work at a Big 4? Does that help with the resume for IB?
It's Transaction Services
I had this exact decision to make for my summer internship, and I just accepted the offer at the boutique firm despite the fact it will pay less than the Big 4 internship.
As most have already said, if you want to do IB full-time, an IB internship at any firm is better than doing something else. Just being able to work on the models and hear the lingo will help immensely in the FT search. Take the boutique offer and don't look back.
The name changes slightly depending on the firm:
Deloitte- FAS Financial Advisory Services E&Y- TAS Transaction Advisory Services PwC- TS Transaction Services KPMG- Advisory
Within each of these there are generally four seperate divisions: Financial, Tax, Valuation, and Real Estate Advisory. Each bringing their respective expertise in regards to the accounting aspect of a transaction.
Those specific groups are not consistent across all firms. For example, some have due diligence teams and some have special situations teams, etc. But in general, the above info is correct.
IB is correct regarding the name.
To the poster asking about Risk Services - I assume you are asking about EY's Business Risk Services (BRS) practice and NO that is not beneficial to IB recruitment. Regular audit would probably be better. EY is trying to move the group to be more management/accounting consulting, but it is really almost all Sarbanes-Oxley work (aka BORING work with very few real long-term skills built).
Your right, I was not thinking of specialty groups such as Deloitte's "Forensic and Dispute Services" within their FAS practice.
Hey, What about Big 4 specialty groups focused solely on corporate finance and not accounting - whether in TAS, FAS, TS, Advisory, etc.? Would they be closer to IBD, front-office work? I was just wondering: a lot of comments on the forum have explained about moving through different positions in different firms/industries, but has anyone here stuck to their first or second internship because they really liked it and didn't want to leverage it up to anything else?
We're Italian, "WACC" means something else to us.
Yes, some of the Big 4 specifically have corporate finance Advisory groups. The Big 4 encountered problems w/ these advisory groups, and almost all of them sold them off after the corporate accounting scandals of Enron, Worldcom. Deloitte refused to sell of their practice, so I know they still have one. E&Y sold their practice to Giuliani Partners, but I don't have any idea if they've started their own Corp Fin Advisory group back up. As to PwC and KPMG, no idea.
This work would, yes, be more applicable to IB. But I don't know if they take interns or how that process works.
I know E&Y has a Structured Finance Group but I can't really tell you much about it. Deloitte and KPMG now have i-banking operations but it's really small.
All of the Big 4 have Structured Finance groups
operations at a BB nyc or big 4 audit internship? what would you recomend
subprime - for FT or a summer internship? Actually to be honest WRT FT or SA, I don't think it matters much. If you're dead set on getting into banking, I'd say go with the BB operations. Although transferring into IB from either of these two jobs isn't easy, it's easier to make the jump from operations because you work for the bank and it's easier to network w/ bankers. It'll also be easier for you to explain your story and show your interest in finance, not to mention you won't have to answer the 'why'd you do audit' question.
However, if you aren't dead set on banking and aren't going to bust your ass to network w/in your firm, the audit experience will open up more doors for you. I think Audit will give you a more transferrable skillset than BB ops and will be more interesting - afterall you will get client interaction and many firms value hiring ex-auditors (just not investment banks).
I have been a long time reader of this forum. I have never posted anything but I am compelled to clarify what Big4 transaction services is, mainly becuase of the number of posts that all read somthing like " Big4 to IB or Big4 on resume." First of all I can only speak for one firm. That being said, transaction services is M&A advisory work. Within these groups there are sell-side, buy-side, bid assesments, transaction accounting advisory, carveouts, and a wide array of other engagments. My paticular experience has come doing buy side due diligence.
For example, pe firm wants to buy somthing, we do an analysis hand it to the pe firm to help them make an investment decision. TS does not do the deals. But, for lack of better words, we beat up IB pitches to find out what's what about the target. Long story short Big4 is a great place to get M&A experience. We do in fact get good deal exposure. In fact, most people I work with chose TS over IB for the obvious reasons ( the hours, strees, etc). Hours in TS aren't IB hours but they can be similar at times. IB bonuses are 10 times better ( because they are salesmen). Also, If you would like to travel a lot TS notorious for its accumulation of frequent flyer miles, not sure if IB travels as much(if travel floats your boat). I do agree with others. If you are for sure you want to do IB. The boutique will be better than audit hands down. If audit is your only option. Use it to get into the TS advisory group at your firm becuase people leave TS for IB, PE, industry M&A, top MBAs, e.t.c. all the time. I think I could argue up why M&A work at a 20 somthing billion dollar international accounting based service firm would be a better experience than a 10 person IB shop. Just my two cents, hope this helps.
Thanks for all the advice this entire forum has given me! I truly appreciate all your input. TS (Transaction Services) sounds very appealing, as during recruiting, the associates did seem to have a very good work/life balance. While I do want to to IB early on in my career, it would not hurt to have a career with a better work/life balance in the future.
Do you think I would have a easier chance getting in to TS with boutique transactions experience or BIG4 audit (assuming that the TS service line is within the same firm I will be interning at)? Thanks for your input
Well, boutique deal experience directly transaltes with TS. Whereas audit is a bit distant. Within these Big 4 transaction service groups are egnagments that are for transaction accounting. I believe thats where the audit experience plays a part in recruitment for things like this. Transactin accounting does tend to be more accounting in nature, and to some, a glorified audit.
Although they both get recruited into TS, if finance is what you like, do boutique IB becuase that can get you into TS, or into other IB roles, PE, etc, depending on what you like.
I interviewed this fall for a SA position with Deloitte, PwC, & E&Y's FAS, FDD, and TS groups respectively.
At one of the firms they were conducting FT & SA interviews simultaneously. Out of the 16 people they were interviewing for FT, 6 of them were ex-merril IB interns (all of whom had their FT offer's revoked). Keep in mind there was only one FT position open. Good luck making the transfer in from audit. In market conditions like these, the safer and less sexy positions become more attractive to top talent.
However I do know of several people who successfully made the transfer after getting their 150 credit hours, CPA, and 2 years audit experience. Although most of them had to switch to another Big 4, as it was easier than convincing their own HR to switch service lines.
I had a 2nd round interview with a Big 4 TS group (internship position). The guy there said TS is M&A but just approaching it from different stages of the M&A lifecycle. Most of it is due diligence during the pre-deal phase. I got the sense that you won't be doing much with deal execution and financing.
Like I said TS doesn't actually do the deals. Even though they offer a lot of products, the mostly provide services on the buy side. My whole point was to inform those who are interested( it seems like a lot because of the number of these types of posts) that TS gets deal exposure its just usually on the other side.
Some Big 4 firms have a corporate finance division in addition to TS (Europe and Asia). How impressive would an internship in a Big4 corporate finance and Investing Banking division look for a sophomore? Can this be compared to a boutique or MM internship?
bump
Can anyone comment on the Business Advisor Program at Ernst & Young? Structured Finance Transactions is included under this group along with Financial Services Risk Management, Finance and Performance Management, Process Controls, and Program Assurance. Anyone have any info on this division? What the work/dealflow is like, pay, exit opps?
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