I’ve been working M&A for a couple years, I left for a corporate finance role in the last year. It had a higher base pay and tons of benefits (obviously at the sacrifice of big bonuses). To be blunt- I want a more interesting path. I have enjoyed a year of getting sleep, but did I shoot myself in the foot from entering PE or HFs after doing corporate finance post M&A? I’m curious if anyone else has done a gap and still made PE/HFs?
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What kind of corp finance? If you mean corp dev/in-house M&A I would think you'd be able to move to PE in the industry you're working in. It's been done in the past.
If you're in like an FP&A/treasury role or something though, then it would be a bit harder
I am senior analyst but It’s not in house M&A (I should have stuck with it). I do Corp dev currently. My M&A time was at a BB if that helps at all.
Isn’t Corp dev in house m&a? anyway if you have previous BB experience, shouldn’t be too hard to make a jump. would you consider going back to IB?
am also in Corp dev and am regretting the Comp, progression and exit opps. don’t want to move to IB either coz of the lifestyle, but I’m not getting any hits for PE by recruiters
Would love to hear more about how things were different between banking and corporate finance after having done banking for some time and what you felt was missing in CF having done it for a year. This is a perspective that is not heard as often on WSO compared to a lot of threads talking about current IB analysts who are burnt out.
I don't post or read here much but what are you curious about?
I personally burned out after 2 years and a few months from iBanking. My year in Corp finance has been great. Simple deliverables and it's 60 hrs on a "rough" week. Base was about 10k higher than iBank but the "bonus" was only a couple thousand, once a year. You do lose some comp depending on which bank you leave.
PM if you genuinely want to discuss more
I personally found the work dry and advancement seems slow. I do think comp and work load was balanced well. It feels very dead end too.
I hit my daily PM limit!
Hey it's me wanting to talk about burn out in IB. I've just wrapped up my first year as an IB analyst and have honestly been pretty burnt out. I don't find the work I do to be interesting, the work is too fast paced for me and as a result, I don't feel like I am learning as much as I should be. I am mid to top bucket in my class. Looking to the future, I don't see myself in a sales type role like MDs where I am at the behest of the client. I've realized that money does not equal happiness but I don't want to be doing mind numbingly boring work that I am not learning anything from. At the same time, I want to have enough guidance in my work and time to do it to be able to enjoy and be good at what I do. I went to an Ivy and am a pretty smart guy I would think but I'm at a crossroads.
I rather not go back tbh but I’m not against it. I had offers before I made the jump and none since. that’s the part that gets me worried. Also covid could be impacting this and has recruitment slowed. idk
To be honest, and @Richard.3, once you step foot outside of the "high finance" world, your IB experience (plus an Ivy degree) is looked at very favorably. Your skills are transferable, you just have to sell them.
The questions are really going to go back to what interests you. Truly. You might have to investigate, speak to people, meditate and let your intuition guide you. Many people are disillusioned with these jobs. There are honestly as many places you can take your experience as there are career options. I can't answer that for you, but really think about what you're great at and what you love to do. What resonates with you - number crunching? Analysis? The legal angle? The marketing angle? What industry is really interesting to you - what non-fiction books do you want to read?
If you don't yet have a family and those kinds of responsibilities which limit your flexibility, now is the time to take some risks. Don't feel that you are disappointing anyone (including yourself, parents, friends, classmates) if you choose something really different, or lower paying. There is so much pressure to "achieve" but that mainly seems to mean title and $$.
I mean I realized I'm not the best at analyses and I dislike research. I hate the BS of the job and I have found I am great at memorizing and studying. I have an interest for all things though like legal and marketing would be fascinating but so would the theory behind things.
Don't get me wrong, I work really hard and that is why I do well at my job consistently. However, I don't get much fulfillment from it.
I don't know if it is really "looked at very favorably".
While my experience is Asia based but I have spoken to colleagues who did it in Canada/Europe so this is my thought and in general WSO is completely off on this topic:
The wide range of exit options in banking is complete BS Having BX, Millennium, IR at Dropbox and Corp dev at [insert any large company here] are not really wide range of exits. You are basically doing the same thing in IB with different culture and people. Just like you don't call people exiting for going from Wendy's to McDonald's
Majority of the IB exits outside high finance are corp dev and IR, you will have more options and flexibility if it is a startup. But you can get any position at startup as a fresh graduate anyway if you network hard. So in reality, in most cases IB only opens corp dev and IR doors.
One may have more luck getting into general positions such as fp&a, treasury, ops, marketing in corporate if the boss there is a former banker. Otherwise, the company will almost always prefer someone with suitable corporate profiles such as Google Account Manager for sales positions, P&G FP&A for finance positions, etc. over a banker
Corp dev and IR are pretty shitty functions of the corporate in terms of long term career development. They may have slightly higher base to attract bankers but they are very bad departments if you join at 30 from banking and hoping to be a lifer.
Very few corporates are that acquisitive to value bankers and very few IR at non-startup company (maybe except for tech) actually have any power. You can rarely find corp dev/IR guys rising to CFO because IB specialized skillset is actually extremely niche. Those non-specialized skilset of bankers such as financial/accounting knowledge and attention to details are often also available from FLDP or Big 4 guys
Moreover, your CFO may choose his buddy who got sacked from GS as an MD at 40 to become the next head of corp dev instead of making an internal promote
Head of corp dev with banking background may prefer bankers and vice versa for big 4 background head of corp dev
Note: WSO did not indent properly
Took a long and winding route to a HF role. Did IB, then went to a quant shop (I think this is comparable to your move to corp fin . . certainly a recharge break). Then went back to IB and now at HF. Probably could've gone directly from the quant shop to the HF but that's how the timing worked out.
People mistakenly assume that an uncommon path is a low probability path. This is just a math error. For example if you scoured hundreds of PE bios, you might find that only a handful of them came from corp fin. But that could be because few in corp fin are attempting that move, and/or that few in corp fin have the necessary background for that move. A banker who could've gone PE, and then chose corp fin, wouldn't be in those circumstances.
Simple example: how many minor league baseball players could make it in the NBA? Hardly any. But if an NBA-level player decides to try out baseball and then wants to return to basketball, his odds are quite good. And you say "but that's MJ" but the same would apply to anyone else who's good enough to play at an NBA level.
There is a pipeline from IB to PE/HF and that is the easiest way. Going a different route (like yours) requires more networking and patience. But if you're willing to put in the extra work and live with the longer search, you can get there.
thank you, I’m certainly reaching out. I don’t hate CF but I definitely would like to reach for more. Thanks for your view.
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