Financial Technology Partners info

Found this company's summer internship listing in my college's career portal and wanted to ask about the company. Basically the reputation, working hours, and exit opps (there is a thread on this already but that was five years ago and the field this company's working in should have only grown since then). Also any diff between the SF and NYC offices?

 

Background: I used to have a lot of friends who worked there.

Their internships don't pay (unless they changed things this year). Also interns get assigned one deal each, but the rest of their time is basically Salesforce database population and other scut work. If you're going to be a freshman or sophomore intern though, the internship is a good stepping stone (unless you can find something better).

NESCAC is spot on in terms of hours. They also work 90% of saturdays.

Most deals they do are actually pretty small ($20-100mm sell sides or capital raises). They do a few big deals a year which they promote on their website, but this isn't representative of their "typical" deal. Their deals also seem to take longer to close than I experienced in banking (probably since the deals are smaller?).

Exit Opps: Again if you're a freshman or sophomore intern, this is actually a good step in the right direction. But if you're thinking about being a full time analyst, know that their analysts struggle with exit opps. Generally you can get into startups and small time (PE (obviously tech or fintech related). It's really tough to go buyside in a different coverage area (like if you worked there and decided you didn't want to do fintech) and most buyout funds won't give FT Partners analysts interviews. It's sad because the analyst are generally bright / good guys.

 

Jesus. zMaerick is an obvious troll. If you had ANY friends there, you'd know that everything you just said was false. I do work there and nothing, absolutely nothing, you said is remotely true. They pay all the interns, the interns were working on multiple deals and I believe we just had 7 interns accept full-time offers; we do lot of mega-deals and exit opps are great if you like Vista, Google Capital, StonePoint, Parthenon, Coatue and others. We work hard, no problem, as all we work on is live deals. I'd just DM any analyst or associate on LinkedIn and ask them. I doubt you have any friends that work there, as if you did why would you completely make stuff up and say anything negative that would hurt your so called "friends". Nice attempt to troll.

 
Best Response

Define mega-deal. To me that means at least >$1bn, and the vast majority of their deals are well under that. Note that the tombstones on the FT Partners website don't include dates, so they can be misleading (again, they are not representative of the average deal). Anyone can confirm that by googling the deals to find announcement dates.

The exits you cited are true, but it's also true that they are the highlights of the last 5+ years of exiting analyst classes. Given there are something like 8 analysts per class (maybe more?), that means the top 1-2 analysts may pull off something like that, but it's certainly the exception. Also the Coatue and Vista analysts you mentioned were major exceptions (the former was a smart, charismatic ex-college football player with personal connections and the latter had a personal relationship that helped him a lot). Don't believe me? Check LinkedIn.

Note the analyst attrition after 12-15 months is also very high, and the majority aren't going to good buyside gigs when they do leave. Again, anyone can confirm this by doing a LinkedIn search for ex-analysts and seeing where they are now.

It's true that most analyst time is spent on live deals (as opposed to being a coverage analyst at a bulge bracket where that may be closer to 30% of time spent), but there are a lot of debt and equity raises (>50% of deal flow) given it's Fintech and the current valuation environment there, and as I mentioned before, FTP's deals take longer to close. Also there's a lot of time spent on things with no-value add to the analyst experience (database entry, tons of decks even relative to normal banking, writing emails for senior people since their senior guys are staffed on a ton of deals per MD).

All I can say for anyone reading this is use your common sense. Know that FT Partners puts a lot of time into patrolling this website after the bad PR they got a few years back on this site (you can find it if you search for it).

If your best offer for a full time position is FT Partners, it's OK, but if you're ultimately trying to go buyside, you may need to lateral or leverage some personal connections you have (especially for buyout PE or hedge funds). If you're an intern and this is your best offer, take it and leverage it into a full time offer at a firm with stronger buyside exit opportunities.

 

Definitely gives junior bankers the chance to learn quickly and gain great experience. Analysts are thrown into the fire in terms of what is asked of them but they have a great support system to help them early on. The deals are all very unique and range from small equity financings ($1bn).

That being said, they do work very hard and the exit opps relative to the experience are not that great. As has been mentioned, the top analysts in each class, with connections, may land a great gig, but it is not the norm.

 

Non dolor magni cupiditate quibusdam occaecati sit ut. Perspiciatis labore est natus sint minus possimus. Qui exercitationem ex nihil fugit.

Eius voluptatem adipisci quo sed maxime facere nihil. Enim vel aut dolorem assumenda. Mollitia eveniet corporis ipsum nobis dolorum.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
5
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
6
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
7
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
10
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”