How long before you closed your first deal?

Hey guys. Its been a month since I started working at a MM M&A advisory firm. Although i've worked on a couple of Deals (WIP), I haven't closed any.

Just wanted to know, how long does it take for one to be a part of an end to end deal, and how long would it take for you to close one? Also, how many deals have you guys worked on, over the course of a year?

 

1 month?? come on, in this environment there are people out there that have been without a closed deal in a year. I personally had my first closed deal within 2 months but I joined in a later stage on that deal so most of the work was already done. I might have worked on 6-7 deals in the first year and only 2 of them actually closed.

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Within a month of me starting we closed a deal, but it was pretty much already wrapped up and the only work I did on it was formalities. For a year after that I worked on a number of deals that matured to various stages but all were either stillborn, fell apart later, or were still in progress by the end of the first year.

 

There's no defined time frame and some could be really quick or protracted (+12 months).

Typically, the m&a deals (sell-side) I've been involved with were broken down into 4 phases:

-Research, analysis, preparation of marketing materials (4-6 weeks) -Buyer outreach and assessment of offers received (4-6 weeks) -Due diligence and negotiations (4-6 weeks) -Structuring and closing (4-6 weeks)

All in, we're talking about a 4-6 month process if all goes well and there are no major hiccups involved.

Hope it helps.

Capitalist
 

At the current brokerage I know 3 people who closed their first deals recently: 1) 8 months working closed 2 deals, one day apart from each other 2) 7 months working closed 1 deal 3) 5 months working closed 1 deal

For #3, he previously worked in commercial banking and grew a decent pipeline in his first few months and progressed very quickly compared to many others, and is performing very well right now.

 
Best Response

I started in June 2007 in MM M&A when the markets were hot. I closed my first deal start-to-finish in April. I was the second analyst in my class to close a deal start to finish, and if I recall correctly, a third analyst closed one the day after I did. I closed my second one start-to-finish in August (these two overlapped). It really ends up being the luck of the draw. Given the market today, don't expect to close a deal start to finish in your first year, but definitely expect at least one in your entire two years.

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First deal I was involved in was 5 months after I started (small debt deal), first somewhat meaningful transaction was 7 months (co-manager of an IPO), and the really meaningful one wasn't until 2 years after (M&A process), and that was followed by 4 or 5 deals.

The most important thing, though, is what kind of work you do. Whether or not deals close is beyond the control of the junior team (usually), so the experience is more meaningful both for you and for funds you may be recruiting for.

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