Pitch Book Practice
Ok guys,
I'm looking to practice writing pitch books. Primarily Sell-side.
I've searched the forums/M&I and have found some useful pitch book examples and 'templates'. My question is though, how to you practise creating them? Would you suggest using past M&A transactions or completely starting from scratch and generating your own M&A transaction ideas.
I'm looking for a way to neatly demonstrate my competency in DCF, Comps, Price-to-Earnings and precedent transactions Analysis along with my PowerPoint skills. I thought a pitch book would be the most relevant way to do so.
If you have any other ideas on how I could demonstrate competency in such a way I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Please excuse any newbie terminology I've used as I am...a newbie!
Make a cover page, ToC, a few slides in each section and FOOTNOTE EVERYTHING.
Done
I think it could be a good way to show competency; just be careful - since bankers work on pitch books all day, your mistakes will stand out.
As PTS said, cover page, ToC... lots of footnotes.
Also, use a Slide Master. Everything will look much more professional.
Bankers love to put company logos in the corner or "For Company XYZ" to "personalize" the pitch even though it may be a canned presentation. I would add a similar line as a nice touch "Created for (Enter Interviewing Company Name)"
Might as well throw in a few slides on You as an appendix including your resume. Oh yeah, bankers love appendices.
Final warning - don't scare anyone. If you tell people you loooove pitch books and do them on your own time for fun or something weird like that, they will call security.
Well first off, spelling the word "practice" correctly would boost your perceived competency.
PTS and grosse,
Great! Thanks guys! Some great tips I'll tone it down! hahaha!
Regarding the creation a sell-side pitch book would you suggest using historic transactions, doing my own analysis and putting together a pitch book or coming up with my own potential transactions and doing the analysis from scratch?
BT Banker,
Nice try, but a true spelling/grammar nazi should know that in the UK there are differences between the words 'practise' and 'practice'. One is a verb and the other is a noun. I'm not being a dick, but you should bare in mind people outside the US use this forum as well!
Dear, mother-fucking god, that is literally the worst thing, I've ever heard in my life.
Prepare to be disappointed.
Regards,
Stringer
Stringer Bell,
Would you like to expand?
Yeah, this is pretty scary. I can only imagine the interview.
Interviewer: "So, why are you interested in finance?" Interviewee: "Well, it's not so much the finance part I care about, I just looooove making pitch books. In fact, in my spare time, I have put a few together I'd like to show you." Interviewer: (runs away screaming)
Hahahahaha!
You may laugh and not understand what Stringer and SirTradesAlot were getting at, but its true.
Getting an interview means you look good on paper, so once you are in the interview the best way to stand out is to be fully prepared (i.e. have solid responses to technical and fit questions) and demonstrate that you have a well-rounded personality (i.e. be normal, social, enthusiastic, able to hold a conversation, etc)... NOT force them to look at some made up pitchbook. My gut tells me that someone who spends their free time putting together pitchbooks cannot do this, and therefore should take the time they would have spent building pitchbooks and allocate it towards figuring out how to normal, social, enthusiastic, able to hold a conversation, etc.
I would not do a historical transaction. I would find a deal that you think makes sense.
Everyone else seems to be down on this idea, but as I said above - there's a wrong way to do this that scares people off. There's a right way that can showcase that you've got the skills to hit the ground running and not seem like a lunatic. It can make you stand out for the right or the wrong reasons.
It's tough to generalize, but perhaps you keep your pitchbook in your back pocket for an interview where it fits well - an associate who is asking about what you do on the weekends would probably ding you. A VP that is grilling you on technicals may garner a more favorable opinion of you from your work.
You had better know your stuff here - you are asking for an interviewer to pick apart your model and ask you how you allocated the purchase price, for example. You'd better know the substance rather than just show up with a good looking slide deck.
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