I have a summer internship at JPM and I'm headed into placement interviews, looking into mainly FIG or M&A. I understand M&A is a much better group on the street, but I do want to consider that my mentor is in FIG. My main concerns are pigeon holing, exit ops, and whether I will forever be branded a "FIG" banker. Thanks!
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JPM is all about M&A, LevFin, Sponsors and in that order.
The ones above are definitely very strong groups at JPM, though keep in mind that most groups at JPM are amongst the top of the street. That being said, this list has very little to do with PE placement.
Hands down, the financial sponsors group places the best because a lot of times their MDs will pick up the phone and recommend analysts to their clients. No other group does that. As for M&A, it places well, though any other coverage group with strong modeling exposure places just as well.
And I am absolutely sorry disappoint anyone, however, Lev Fin does not places well into PE. And the main reason is that they DO NOT MODEL. They do send a few guys to credit funds, not many though. Most people actually end up staying and getting associate promotions.
Hope this helped.
How would you describe the learning experience in FSG relative to m&a and other industry groups? It seems clear that they place well because of MD relationships... but will you learn a lot and just as much as you would in other groups? What kind of deals and model would you work on? How different will your learning experience be vs someone in m&a or coverage group like CRG HC or TMT?
Just to be clear I am speaking from my personal experience, and I am in what is regarded a coverage group with strong modeling experience within the bank and across the street. I do have friends in FSG and M&A and I did work with those groups, however keep in mind that it's not first hand.
In my group, we are the deal team that pitches for business and then executes once we get a mandate. So you are the analyst who works on the deal from A to Z. If it's an M&A deal, most likely you will be the only analyst or the lead analyst - my group almost never works with M&A juniors. We do involve their senior people as they do bring execution expertise. The times that we do work with M&A, their juniors would largely do process work (buyer logs, data room organization, defense profiles etc). You will be the one running the model, working on industry and company specific qualitative materials.
That being said obviously there are times when M&A works on the model, however, I honestly don't know anyone in my group who was not the lead analyst on a deal. Though I do know times when the M&A analyst was lead while working with a different coverage group. In both cases, I think it's very safe to say that M&A juniors do A LOT of process oriented tasks.
FSG is quite different from the above, from a good friend I know that it is largely what you make out of the experience. You will not have the same product and modeling experience as in coverage. You may work on a sponsor exit IPO if you are lucky, but generally you will be working on sell side financing - as financial sponsors rarely engage buy-side advisors.
For instance, let's say you are working on a potential sell side financing. You are assigned to a "financing tree" - which means that you are representing a potential buyer on the financing if the transaction goes through. Keep in mind that there are probably 10 potential buyers and only one will get the deal (from this perspective definitely similar to a M&A buy side in an auction process). In this position you are helping the potential buyer to diligence the investment opportunity and you are working along side with the leverage fiance group to come up with a capital structure etc. Yes, you could say you are building an LBO, however, all you really care about is the cash flow profile and the debt pay down, thus it might really bank of the envelope at some points. Your MD doesn't really care how granular the model is, because it frankly doesn't matter, so from a learning perspective it is up to you to develop those skills. I'm almost convinced that you will never build a full blown merger model with all the bells and whistles, and most of the modeling that you will do will be pretty basic unless you take the initiative to dig deeper. I do hear though that it's a great environment to learn about how the PE investment professionals think, and what questions they think it is important to ask.
Bottom line, I think a strong coverage group provides you with the best learning experience. M&A is definitely up there as well, though for me personally is very hard to look past all the process work that they do, as I find it very boring, but I'm sure some would disagree. And FSG would probably be last.
But from a placement perspective, or at the least from interview landing point, FSG tops any other group. You won't learn as much though unless you are really dedicated (even then, still not the same experience).
Hope this incredibly long answer was helpful.
Doesn't JPM fig consistently rank 1 or 2 in league tables?
I personally know people a few years older in JP M&A, and I can tell you it has been placing really well in the last couple of years. I know people on this forum always talk about Sponsors, but imo M&A is the top group.
Don' think about FIG. All your concerns about FIG are real. Even though admittedly the group is led by some phenomenal bankers at the top (I think dealflow has been really strengthened by the arrival of a highly regarded ex MS FIG banker) , analysts are placing to MM PE at best. Also, no one likes the culture there.
Another group you could consider is healthcare. Really solid.
Mind if I PM you?
I don't know if I can be of more help that what I already posted above, but sure
Personally, I would look at building a skill set and assessing where I would like to be in the future. Therefore, the obvious choice for me would be M & A. Broader skill set and good exit opps to PE.
If you have a close relationship with your mentor, he probably will pull you into FIG during the group placement process.
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