Exit opps at a balance sheet bank with little to no M&A deal experience?

I interned and accepted a return offer back at an industry coverage group at a non-BB, but major balance-sheet driven investment bank (think along the lines of Wells Fargo Securities, RBC Capital Markets, etc.) on the west coast. We do a lot of debt and equity financings, but not a whole lot of M&A and it's more likely than not that I'll come out of my analyst stint with little to no M&A deal experience. Is it still possible to exit to PE from that kind of position, and if not what would the exit opps look like?

 

Lots of people get PE jobs out of coverage or product groups that don't do any or much M&A. Just make an effort to really understand the industry your group focuses on, and make it known to the staffer, officers, et al that you want to do as much M&A as possible. And/or do a third year in the firm's M&A group. There's also an advantage to doing M&A in connection with balance sheet work, because the modeling tends to be more complicated and substantive compared to the modeling (if there even is any) done on sellsides.

 

A really good point. Hadn’t thought of this when working on the models and then thinking about buyside recruiting, but I’d imagine the typical M&A model done on the sell side is in fact more limited and just operating model then standard LBO, almost certainly not mixing in the more complicated debt components, as it will be done by the type of bank I work for, (or possibly the buyer I guess) on the other side of the transaction. 

 

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