Mentioning Saudi Aramco in interviews?

If I'm applying to 2018 IB summer internships at JPM, HSBC, and MS, should I bring up the Saudi Aramco IPO/underwriting process as part of the reason I want to work there? Would interns even be able to touch that stuff?

 

I mean it is likely to be the single largest IPO in the energy sector ever, so that's cool. But more to the point, if OP wants to work in energy finance it might be a good reason but I would talk more about past deals for anything else (MS and JPM did a lot of work on the Bass Pro/Cabela's merger, for example).

University of Chicago
 

Yeah, I'm pretty specifically interested in oil and gas IB since I interned at a supermajor this summer, so I thought it would make sense to bring it up as a main reason to work at one of the banks that's underwriting Aramco. But I'll absolutely make sure to talk about past deals as well.

I was mainly wondering if it made sense in terms of timeline, since I know the IPO is scheduled to happen late 2018/early 2019. I'm assuming the banks are going to be spending the summer months underwriting? What stage in the process would they be at?

 
Best Response

The only bank likely doing a lot of work on the deal is JPM, since they are lead left I believe. All of the other banks will have some work to do internally on it, but its probably not worth mentioning unless you're talking to somebody already working on the deal.

Unless the person you're talking to has direct knowledge of the deal, they will know absolutely nothing about it other than maybe the firm has a roll. They won't be able to comment much about it and would probably rather talk about another IPO or what you know about the process as a whole.

 

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