Boutique without a client - Am I screwed?
Hi,
So I've been working as an unpaid intern at a boutique investment banking advisory in west coast for two weeks. I discovered lately that my company does not have a client at the moment - they have been around for several years, completed about a dozen deals in multiple sectors in the past, but are not currently working on deals. I didn't know about this until I get to work there - this sucks, I know, and I think I'm pretty much screwed. So basically, my daily job is meaningless dirty work. What I'm trying to do now is to learn Excel modeling on my own to cover the large blank of time.
I am graduating either in 13 or 14, which is up to me, from a semi-target, so this is either my freshman internship or sophomore one. I would like to hear your advice as to how I can make up for this seemingly worst-case scenario. What am I going to tell recruiters next year about my experience here? What do you think is the part that I can take the initiative to change in the next 4 weeks of the internship?
I appreciate a lot for your inputs.
They must be pitching, if you are involved in that its pretty much the same as SA at a BB - doing pitchbooks and models. Even at a BB it can happen that your team is small and doesn't have a live transaction while you are there or that they give you meaningless stuff to do. If you work on a pitch and it translates into a transaction, that's a great experience you can talk about right there!
be glad you have that internship and spice it up on the resume`
stop being a little girl and relax a little
Recruiters won't expect you to close a deal during your internship, that is unlikely to happen anywhere you work if you are only there for a few months. The most important thing is to learn as much as you can about valuation and learn technical skills. One good thing about not being busy is that you can ask people around you to explain to you and teach you how to get started with modelling and valuation, to take you through some of their templates and previous models they have done. You won't get a chance to do that if the team was really busy, people just wouldn't have time to explain to you how to do things and would give you dirty easy and boring work.
You could hit the phones and start sourcing.....
Hey guys,
Thanks for your replies. Just that I think the situation may be somewhat different from the usual case.
My bank isn't doing pitches - the dirty work I mean is rather like admin work than banking. The MD is traveling abroad, maybe for business, maybe just for vacation. I'm not sure if he and the associates in my office are actually seeking deals. The bank is not FINRA licensed.
I'm starting to ask one of the two associates just before I get off work today how to build models and wonder if he could give me some previous models. Think he'll reply tomorrow. Just I'm not sure if he can really help me.
Guys, do you think it's still normal?
To me this is an awesome internship. Learning stuff is nice but lets be honest any bank will train you if you go FT so its not like you are forced to learn stuff no or you will never be able to. IDK whats better than an internship where you could sit around a watch porn all day.
Trust me, you don't want to tell recruiters things like that.
It's not abnormal to not have clients, although it certainly isn't good. What is abnormal is that your MD isn't aggressively sourcing.
lol and why would you? To recruiters you should be a hotshot banker interning at a boutique and rocking the shit...why sell yourself as anything different - no matter how the internship goes? Also if you are unhappy there, network and switch to somewhere else.
They must be pitching, if you are involved in that its pretty much the same as SA at a BB - doing pitchbooks and models
Yeah, you're so screwed!!!
observe what everyone else is doing, what the associates are up to. it's very strange that they are not even pitching or meeting potential clients. surely thats bad for everyone else as well, not just you. speak to the associates and if they have nothing to do they should gladly teach you or tell you about deals that they have worked on previously and show you what they've done. otherwise may be see if you can work in a different team within the bank that is busier. speak to HR department or whoever took care of your recruitment and explain that you want to learn as much as you can and get real work experience. may be they can help you move internally
Ok OP, in case your not trolling you need to chill out :p
Who the fk cares what you do at your freshman/soph boutique internship.
Just having this internship is invaluable.
Now you must get good at the art of lying and just make up some shit that you did during your internship at your interview, dont take it too far and say you build lbos, or they will quiz you on how to build an lbo and youll be screwed.
This lying and bullshitting will be great practice for working in ibanking, because the majority of work you will be doing will involve lying and bullshitting your client, welcome to the sell side.
If you are lucky enough at some point you may jump over to the buyside where your value add will come less from looting and lying and deceiving clients.
Be happy you have an internship. Even if you're not working on a live transaction, there are a lot of steps and efforts made by boutiques to get to that stage. The partners are probably talking to potential clients and analyzing potential, which is also a great experience to be a part of. Pitching, creating investor presentations, etc. are all similar things you will be doing at a BB too, and if you get to that stage you can also talk up that experience.
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