What is JPM Corporate Client Banking?

Any insight to this group? What should one expect in terms of an interview? Exit ops? Pay? Culture?

What does JP Morgan Corporate Banking Do?

JP Morgan describes the group on their website as:

We build client relationships, solve problems and partner across the firm to provide clients with best-in-class solutions. The work is fast-paced and stimulating, ranging from preparing marketing materials to executing debt transactions. The group is split into sectors. Corporate Client Banking & Specialized Industries works with companies in a range of industries including: Financial Institutions (Banks, Specialty Finance, Insurance, Funds, and Mortgage Finance), Oil & Gas (Energy), Entertainment, Technology, Media & Telecom, Consumer Retail, Industrials/Manufacturing, Business services and Healthcare.

As part of Commercial Banking’s Corporate Client Banking & Specialized Industries team, you’ll play an integral role in helping U.S. and Canadian companies and institutions with everything from cash management and debt structuring to corporate strategy.

Read more about the group on the JP Morgan Website.

Tweedy Harris - Corporate Development Analyst:
The CCB group is the lead relationship manager for clients in the range that banker00 mentioned except the upper bound is really just whatever IBD doesn't manage (not going to mention clients but there are a handful of megacaps). So a banker would say "hey you have a bit of currency/commodity exposure, how about we put you in contact with our FX/commodities desk to work out a hedging strategy?" or "hey your capital structure could be a bit more efficient, how about you let our LevFin team work out a debt structure that makes sense for you?".

The entry level position is actually closer to LevFin than pitching clients. 90-95% of the Analyst work is LevFin rather than CCB. While you do work mostly with bank debt (revolving credit facility, term loan A) there are plenty of deals with institutional debt (term loan B, bonds). The bank doesn't actually make money on this stuff (no one does), it's more of a loss leader for the institutional debt deals. The companies the CCB LevFin team (separate from the IBD LevFin team) deal with tend to be smaller so they might not be able to handle a ton of debt but there are the occasional acquisition financing deals that bring the hours closer to traditional IBD hours than the usual 50-60/wk. The work is fairly similar to what you'd expect at a bank - Microsoft Office all day every day.

banker00:
I had an sa interview with this group back in the days when it was called mid corporate banking. This group focuses on commercial lending products (ie revolver, term loans, etc) and cross selling (ie cash mgt, treasury, etc). they pitch ibd products/advisory but outsource the work to the ibd. they focus on corporates with annual revenues around ~$500mm-~$2b (somewhere around that range).

What is the JPM Corp. Banking Interview Like?

Our users shared their insight on the interview below.

Raptor.45:
It's commercial banking aka making loans to companies. As a result any technicals they ask you besides the basic financial statement accounting stuff will focus on debt. Know your debt ratios/interest coverage ratios and get ready to answer hypotheticals about creditworthiness. Also be able to articulate why commercial lending is for you. No idea about exit opps. I think hours are 50-60/wk or so and pay is probably ~60k base 10-15k-ish bonus rough guess.

banker00:
Interview questions will revolve around standard IB technicals, behavioral, fit, and other credit and accounting related stuff. most people transition internally to LevFin and other ibd groups and tend to stay at the firm.

Tweedy Harris - Corporate Development Analyst:
Interviews aren't terribly technical. There's next to no valuation work (debt providers don't care about valuation, just getting their interest and principal) so you shouldn't get DCF or comps analysis style questions. Expect questions more along the lines of "what's important when analyzing a company's creditworthiness?" as well as the usual fit questions.

A big difference from the IBD Analyst stints is that a majority of the group goes A to A rather than jumping out after 2-3 years. You can choose to be an Associate in CCB (coverage stuff) or LevFin (and officially be an employee of IBD rather than the Corporate Bank) though they naturally want you to stay CCB.

Exit Opportunities from Corporate Banking

Our users shared insights about the potential exits from corporate banking.

Tweedy Harris - Corporate Development Analyst:
Your exit opps won't be like IBD. A popular one seems to be jumping to industry and joining a company's finance team (the other side of the table during deals). You might be able to sell it and get something in PE or a credit team just because of your familiarity with debt but, as mentioned, there's no valuation work so jumping to a fundamental equity shop is probably not an option. A lot of the more senior guys have MBAs (and a number of them got them while working - ah 50-60hrs/wk).

Work Life and Salary of Corporate Banking

Our users shared that the hours for the group are around 60/hrs a week.

Oxon:
I have worked with CB guys on different deals - their lifestyle is pretty good. 60 hr/wk is standard. 1yr analyst gets ~60k for base salary. 1yr associate gets ~90k to 100k for base. The bonus is about 60% of that of IBD guys, depending on the bank. Just to mention that JPM has two CB arms - one for MM and one for megacomps. Their clients are different but compensation are not so much.

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My friend works in this group at 277 park. The interview will be the customary ib, accounting, modeling questions. They may ask some strange questions ie what 3 websites would you visit during your lunch break. Mostly middle market deals from several hundred million to single digit billion valuations. The group is very compact so you will get decent exposure but modest time to "prove" yourself. Pay is relatively low compared to ib. It's somewhere around 65 + 10 + bonus. Internal mobility at JPM is very good and you could possibly leverage into levfin, coverage, credit risk group. I've been told 65-70 hrs. Some traveling depending on your group.

 

It's commercial banking aka making loans to companies. As a result any technicals they ask you besides the basic financial statement accounting stuff will focus on debt. Know your debt ratios/interest coverage ratios and get ready to answer hypotheticals about creditworthiness. Also be able to articulate why commercial lending is for you. No idea about exit opps. I think hours are 50-60/wk or so and pay is probably ~60k base 10-15k-ish bonus rough guess.

 

i had an sa interview with this group back in the days when it was called mid corporate banking. this group focuses on commercial lending products (ie revolver, term loans, etc) and cross selling (ie cash mgt, treasury, etc). they pitch ibd products/advisory but outsource the work to the ibd. they focus on corporates with annual revenues around ~$500mm-~$2b (somewhere around that range). interview questions will revolve around standard ib technicals, behavioral, fit, and other credit and accounting related stuff. most people transition internally to LevFin and other ibd groups and tend to stay at the firm.

 
Best Response

I had an SA gig there and had a decent experience. It's a bit different than Raptor or banker00 depicted. The CCB group is the lead relationship manager for clients in the range that banker00 mentioned except the upper bound is really just whatever IBD doesn't manage (not going to mention clients but there are a handful of megacaps). So a banker would say "hey you have a bit of currency/commodity exposure, how about we put you in contact with our FX/commodities desk to work out a hedging strategy?" or "hey your capital structure could be a bit more efficient, how about you let our LevFin team work out a debt structure that makes sense for you?".

As you can imagine, SAs and Analysts aren't pitching to clients all that often so the LevFin team that works closely with the CCB team snags them for a variety of deals. The entry level position is actually closer to LevFin than pitching clients. 90-95% of the Analyst work is LevFin rather than CCB. While you do work mostly with bank debt (revolving credit facility, term loan A) there are plenty of deals with institutional debt (term loan B, bonds). The bank debt is pretty run of the mill stuff and most analysts can to the work in their sleep by the end of the first year. The bank doesn't actually make money on this stuff (no one does), it's more of a loss leader for the institutional debt deals. The companies the CCB LevFin team (separate from the IDB LevFin team) deal with tend to be smaller so they might not be able to handle a ton of debt but there are the occasional acquisition financing deals that bring the hours closer to traditional IBD hours than the usual 50-60/wk. The work is fairly similar to what you'd expect at a bank - Microsoft Office all day every day.

Interviews aren't terribly technical. There's next to no valuation work (debt providers don't care about valuation, just getting their interest and principal) so you shouldn't get DCF or comps analysis style questions. Expect questions more along the lines of "what's important when analyzing a company's creditworthiness?" as well as the usual fit questions. Most college students don't know that much about debt relative to equity so they won't expect you to know about the types of debt I mentioned above (but breaking that out will probably set you apart). A big difference from the IBD Analyst stints is that a majority of the group goes A to A rather than jumping out after 2-3 years. You can choose to be an Associate in CCB (coverage stuff) or LevFin (and officially be an employee of IBD rather than the Corporate Bank) though they naturally want you to stay CCB. I think they might be expanding the group a tad but it's very small compared to IBD SA gig (12 CCB interns nationally vs. the 150+ IBD) so it's still decently competitive. And they actually just added the position to the official JPM careers page so it'll probably get more applicants than in years past.

Your exit opps won't be like IBD. A popular one seems to be jumping to industry and joining a company's finance team (the other side of the table during deals). You might be able to sell it and get something in PE or a credit team just because of your familiarity with debt but, as mentioned, there's no valuation work so jumping to a fundamental equity shop is probably not an option. A lot of the more senior guys have MBAs (and a number of them got them while working - ah 50-60hrs/wk).

Hopefully this answers your question (a year later but I'm sure people will be looking into it soon).

 

I couldn't possibly answer better than Tweedy Harris does. I have worked with CB guys on different deals - their lifestyle is pretty good. 60 hr/wk is standard. 1yr analyst gets ~60k for base salary. 1yr associate gets ~90k to 100k for base. The bonus is about 60% of that of IBD guys, depending on the bank. Just to mention that JPM has two CB arms - one for MM and one for megacomps. Their clients are different but compensation are not so much.

 

Only downside is culture in JPM CCB. If you like the whole fratty state-school atmosphere with higher male-female ratio and fewer people from diverse backgrounds, it's the place to go. Senior people in CCB don't like to hear that their culture is different or even worse than the rest of JPM's IB business, but they just don't get the high fliers out of undergrad and it makes a difference.

 

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