Strategy&, Deals Strategy Team Questions
I'm from a state school and have the final round of Strategy& coming up for the Deals Strategy team. I was wondering what I should know about Deals Strategy in general and the type of work they do. I'm majoring in MIS and Math so just want to know what to expect out of both the interview and the role.
Congrats!
S& Deals is best thought of as a wholly owned entity within PwC, aligned with S& for compensation and talent. PwC has market leading functions across the Deals life cycle (financial and accounting diligence, post merger acquisition) and the Deals practice was a great synergy to come out of the S& acquisition. Maybe the best one.
The practice has grown rapidly due to some strong senior recruitment (read: acquiring senior people from other firms). We've quickly become a top 5 player in cross-industry commercial diligence.
The work is very aligned to LEK, Parthenon, Bain's PEG and McKinsey's PE practice and clients range from mid to upper mid market PE clients to megafunds and F500 companies.
We are very market oriented. Most of our work is around validating an investment thesis for a potential acquisition from a commercial standpoint. This means researching market drivers and growth, interviewing competitors and customers, and digging into the competitive advantages of a company to understand their positioning against their peers. It's basically business school 2.0. Honestly, most of us think it's the most interesting part of consulting. At the end of the day, we provide a recommendation to invest or not invest in a target or market based on our findings. We are encourage to be provocative, independent thinkers in our analysis. It's about finding the story of what's really happening in a sector through primary and secondary research and then validating those findings. You won't be disappointed at our client profiles (we are able to leverage PwC's relationships at the upper end of the PE spectrum and our partners former relationships). You will learn an enormous amount about what makes a strong company from a commercial standpoint and how the world interconnects. It's low travel (10-30%) and most work is done from the office.
The downside is that the hours in commercial diligence are generally more variable than other consulting roles; weekend and late night work happens and it is usually without warning. There are numerous initiatives from senior partners to help protect junior consultants from being over deluged, but there will be high burn periods.
Interviews are aligned with all top consulting firms - case, fit, etc. It's competitive. The group is now I believe the most applied to vertical at S&. They are also aggressively hiring; they've been sold out for work over the past 6 months and continue to grow rapidly.
Would love to know what the potential exit opps you’ve seen are. Can you make it to PE if you join post MBA?
Frankly, we're just starting to see exits now. The group is very young. Startups are the most popular route, PE and non-profits also make the list. Almost all exits have been post undergrad. So time will tell.
That being said, I get looks by PE recruiters pretty regularly and have had a few reach out for phone chats. I'm not really interested, so haven't pursued.
In general, though, post MBA consulting isn't really a feeder to PE (nor, really, is post MBA IB). Of the groups out there, ours is probably one of the best to position, especially for diligence/research roles. It's not Bain PEG but we are definitely gaining market recognition. If PE is your end goal though, you really need to get the resume stamp before school or during your MBA (usually with an internship during the school year).
If I were to guess, corp dev/consulting laterals/corporate strategy/IB/finance are all probable exits from our group post MBA. Less so PE, but no less so than LEK/Parthenon/etc. We do zero ops work, so it's unlikely you'd walk into a P&L role.
Do you know anything about the new Private Equity Value Creation Team within the Deals vertical? They recently presented it on campus and it sounds super interesting. How does the work and exit paths differ from the Deals team CDD work?
Interview Prep - Strategy& Deals Strategy (Originally Posted: 03/07/2018)
Hello everyone,
I have an interview coming up with the Deals Strategy team for Strategy& and would love some input to prep.
1) Does anyone have any prior interview experience with this team? 2) Can you point me to example case studies that might be asked in this interview? 3) What technical questions should I be prepared for?
Thanks!
Hi Waffles21, whoops, looks like nobody chimed in here.... maybe one of these discussions below is relevant:
If we're lucky, the following pros may have something to say: @Robert-Pisanelli" UFOinsider marqix
You're welcome.
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