Ernst & Young Transaction Advisory OR Citi Private Banking?

What was the entry level pay for each division if you dont mind sharing?

You will get more IB-related experience in Transaction Advisory, and may be able to leverage that into a front-office IB position down the road (or at the very least, after MBA) You will get paid more in Private Banking, but I don't think you can use the experience you get to find a front-office IB position. Of course, you can get IB job after MBA.

So basically, it boils down to whether or not you want to have a shot at an IB gig before or after MBA (or if you want do IB at all).

Pay is definitely better in Private Banking.

Do you have any idea if you get any bonuses with Transaction Advisory? If so, how much?

Pass all three parts of the CFA then move to one of your PE firm clients. It will make a much stronger and more unique story for business school as well. With that said, I'm assuming the E&Y offer is in a major city.

Is it common to find people in TAS move over to one of their PE clients?

Not really, no.

"Is it common to find people in TAS move over to one of their PE clients?"

It's not common, but it does happen - more likely in MM. I've a small handful in Canada. Not so much in the States... granted, there's a lot more PE firms in US, and you'll only know so many MM players off the top of your head...

Sorry double post

My vote's for TAS as well. I'm not sure how much you'll get out of Private Banking, the 'recognized' skill set of your role there will be more limited... so unless you want to stay in PB, it might be tough to get out later.

It's low because it's a 2nd tier job full of state school kids.

I've read on previous threads that most of the work done in TAS is simply due diligence. Is this the "IB related experience" you're referring to? Does the division ever execute deals of their own?

@Verne- I think for the first three years in the program you do a rotation between Audit and TAS. Generally 9 months audit then 3 months TAS.

Asked my friend who is starting with E&Y TAS next year, and he doesn't have to complete the CPA designation. In fact, he said that all of the people he met at the office didn't have CPAs... a few of them have CFAs, however.

I guess it's different from location to location...

The non-CPAs can still progress in an accounting firm, but perhaps with different names. Like, principals instead of Partners..

Don't know about the US, but in Europe Transaction Advisory (or Transaction Services) at big four audit firms involves Due Diligence and Corporate Finance Advisory (mid market M&A). Usually you are placed in one or the other, but don't do both.

In the UK and Continental Europe, there are a lot of Big Four TS guys in MM PE firms. I suppose it must be possible in the US.

If you would like to do PE later on, definitely go with the EY job.

Is a CPA as prestigious as a CFA?--- is it worth while to put what I want to do ultimately (work on WS) aside to go and work in an accounting firm for a few years to get my CPA just to try and make a move then into IB?

aka is CPA to accounting as CFA is to finance?

.... I am afraid that I will not be a good MBA candidate and/or would have bad exit opportunities within PB

How prepared am I for top 10 MBA admissions with a CFA & Bulge Bracket PB analyst experience??

private banking

I think it depends on the TAS group you are in.. Some groups will have much better exit opps than others, and some require the CPA vs CFA. You don't need a CPA to be in the majority of TAS groups. I am surprised the salary offer is only 55k because I know for certain all of the new hires got 5-10k more than that starting this past Fall and expect around a 2 to 10k year end bonus depending on the group. That being said, the additional money you make in the first few years of your career is very little compared to what you will see down the road. I would suggest looking at exit opps between Private Banking (most likely corporate finance or MBA) vs TAS.

TAS is apparently implementing an internal rotation between the groups (not with audit or tax, but within TAS) starting in the next year or two. I work at EY in TAS so PM with with questions.

In a transaction support role or commercial due dilligence, you are mostly doing due diligence and acting as an auditor to projections in M&A deals. Transaction support is more of an audit type role during due diligence procediings, and the only one that I know has a rotation program with audit.

In transaction tax, you need an MBA or JD and do mostly tax structing of M&A deals. Salary is much higher.

In valuation, most people have a CFA or ASA. You will be doing most purchase price allocations at the end of an M&A transaction, goodwill impairment testing, and creating fair value marks for businesses, intangible assets, hedge fund portfolios, financial reporting/tax restructing.

Transaction real estate is very highly regarded and does a lot of hands on real estate m&a advising.

Transaction intergration is all MBAs and they are more of a management/strategic consulting role to help recognize synergies post transaction. They help with structuring the company. Salary is much higher.

Can you specify which group within TAS you have an offer? That makes a big difference for exit opportunity vs PB.

I have heard that the more audit focused roles are not highly regarded for MBA placement. I know a few people in Valuation that are doing risk at hedge funds, corporate finance, or transitioned to banking. A lot of Transaction real estate people go to work for REITS, etc.

Within TAS there are a good amount of NYU, Cornell (especially in the real estate), Boston College, Brandeis people.

Yes, I've heard from a professor that top MBA programs cap the amount of ex-auditors!

I'm in a very similar position to qblax623, but I'm faced with an offer from EY in Audit (major city) and a PWM associate position w/ JPM (smaller city =1million). Starting salaries are 50k and 70k+ bonus, respectively.

I already have an MPA (masters in accounting + some finance graduate course work), and intend to site for the CPA. Also, I n the longterm I hope to end up on WS whether its IB/PE/HF. Which option would best prepare me WS? Also, is an MBA or CFA even necessary if I already have an MPA and CPA to land a WS gig?

Fortunate to have options but just wished Audit was a little more prestigious...

Toblerone - the role he is talking about is in the Transaction Advisory Services line at EY, it is not an audit role.

I think the other role is Private banking, not private wealth. I would say that TAS is more closely related to IB than Private Banking. The only private banking roles really directly related deal with internal risk, or internal corporate development. I have talked to people about switching out of transaction services to IBD and it is not always easy. Firstly, you do have a bit of a taint from the fact that people see Big 4 and they assume you are an auditor (despite being in transaction advisory). In transaction advisory, you will do some work that helps support the audit team, but most of your work is transaction related. Regardless, having a CPA or CFA is helpful for valuations that you will be doing in IBD, so the best bet to transfer from what I can see is through 1) networking, and 2) work hard to demonstrate that transaction services has many transferrable skills.

You may still need an MBA for either, just because when you are 1 or 2 years out you can be in a dead zone in terms of training/job placement if you aren't on the pre-prescribed path to PE.

The purpose of an MBA for you would be to re-brand yourself, hopefully overriding that somewhat negative view of accountants. But even with an MBA, it's not guaranteed that you will get into IB.

I am also in a similar situation. I have offers from Ernst and Young in audit, but I also have an offer from Goldman Sachs in the operations division. From my understanding the operations is a back office job. When I told EY about the GS offer and my interest in finance, they are now talking about finding a place for me in TS. Does anyone have any thoughts about these offers?