PwC - Financial Services Advisory - Capital Markets Basically Just Risk & Compliance?
Hey all,
Recently was looking into a role with PwC in the Financial Services Advisory practice & Banking and Capital Markets industry.
I come from a lending background and my question is pretty simple - is Financial Services Advisory in PwC’s Capital Markets group a true “advisory” role or is it one of those gigs that’s basically just compliance/assurance/regulatory work with a dressed up name, for financial clients?
Pro Tip: Every job at PwC sucks. The only true consulting gigs are if you're at Strategy&, the rest are just outsourced back office roles.
It seems like this kind of aligns with what I've been reading on reddit / these forums. Everyone at a Big 4 (sans like KPMG Corp Finance or Deloitte S&O) desperately wants to escape. It's weird because in college the brands are pitched so illustriously to undergrads.
KPMG Corp Finance is true advisory, it's the firms IB arm.
Probably because they hire a fuck ton of people so it gives shitty business professors a raison d'etre.
this guy gets it
Have you tried reaching out to people on LinkedIn? Alternatively, you can try to contact HR with your questions and they find a consultant who will talk with you. They did that for me, albeit after I applied and was invited for an interview (risk consulting in financial services advisory).
On strategy&: As far as I am aware their strength historically lies in automotive consulting. They also do financial services but I was told by PwC employees that they aren't on par with others in this area.
I'm probably going to try that after my first round interview with HR, because we all know HR isn't the most adequate when it comes to relaying technical details of a position. My current gig is solid enough I'm not desperate to leave, just kind of looking to branch out into corporate finance and advisory rather than working with RE all my life. Had no idea "advisory" at a Big 4 wasn't actual advisory.
I always thought that the big4 call consulting 'advisory'. Recently I heard a manager say that 'advisory' means audit-related consulting and 'consulting' means everything else. Honestly, trying to decipher naming conventions of companies is mostly futile. Just talk to someone about what kind of projects they work on and then form your opinion. Either way, advisory at big4 is not corporate finance advisory.
I just read your initial post again and you ask about the capital markets team in financial services advisory. So, financial services is the service line (next to audit, tax, deals). capital markets refers to the clients. What is missing is the project focus. For instance I interviewed for risk consulting in the banking team which is in the financial services line. How it went for me was that I applied for a general consultant role in financial services and the risk consulting banking team happened to like my CV and invited me for an interview. So I presume you should find out soon what specific project team you are talking to.
I know a lot of people like to diss the big 4, but the reality is quite different to what some posted above.
It's true that a lot of roles in audit and tax can be quite repetitive/boring. And those jobs are the ones most people want to leave. However, in advisory, the turnover is lower, with most people leaving because of lower pay (compared to what the make somewhere else) rather than how dreadful the job is.
I worked in advisory in Europe and Asia for a Big 4. I was on the transaction side, and worked on some of the largest PE deals in the region (not necessarily as M&A, but also due diligence, valuation, IPO advice). In the US, Big 4 has a smaller footprint due to competition from a lot of banks, boutiques, MM firms etc. In Europe and Asia, corporate finance in big 4 tends to do close to the largest number of deals (MM generally), getting to the top on volume, but not on value.
So advisory is not audit-related consulting, nor outsourced back office. But it's a big business unit, so some roles might do more compliance type work, while others are more like strategy/operations consulting. The job you're describing sounds like Operations consulting for banks and capital markets clients (stock exchanges/fintech etc). On some of this work, PwC would be competing with MBB (which does operations and implementations as well, not just strategy). If the job sounds interesting, you should ask the team in interviews who they pitch against and why they win/lose their pitches.
List of groups that offer transaction-related advisory services in some form or fashion. This may not be comprehensive, but it's pretty close. Source: I used to work in one of these groups
PwC Corporate Finance (actual IB work) Strategy& (management consulting) PwC DDV (Delivering Deal Value) (post-merger intergration, synergy planning) PwC Deal Strategy (pre-deal strategic consulting) PwC Capital Markets Advisory (IPO, capital raise, balance sheet advisory and accounting) PwC Deal Analytics (big data-driven analytics for deal planning, execution, and integration) PwC Transaction services (accounting diligence)
Second this. Depending on team and region, PwC Valuations group could also be a viable choice. (Although I've heard that in some regions, firms put Valuation teams under Assurance or Tax now, and they mostly do audit-support type of work.)
I came from Valuations background (not PwC, and in an emerging market) and I spent 50% of my time on financial modeling projects (mostly for project finance) and 50% on enterprise valuations. I did very little boring stuff such as impairment testing or purchase price allocations.
I kinda regret that I left too early (1.5 years) because I could have asked to get staffed on a few financial due diligence projects. I'm actually considering coming back to another Big 4 for a FDD role (just had an interview) and stay there for at least another 1.5 years. Having financial modeling, valuation, and FDD skillset is golden imo. Couple those with a top MBA and I think I'll be set.
So what about roles like Transaction Advisory Service, is this any role to take with good transferable skillls or not?
Which firm ? They all mean different things at different firms
Honestly i know it’s much but if you could provide any insight it’d be much appreciated.
Basically, FS - Capital Markets is just the industry. To understand what type of work you will be doing, you will need to know what group you are applying to. Could be cyber security, regulatory/compliance, process improvement, digital, etc...
FS does, however, tend to have more boring back-office type work, but again, really depends on what group you work for. FS Capital Markets is just the industry.
Ex - PWC Deals Strategy and Transaction Services here. Sounds like you're talking about Capital Markets Accounting Advisory Services - falls under assurance technically. Doing opening and closing balance sheets. Post transaction accounting advisory work. They do some IPO readiness as well if I am not mistaken. This is essentially audit procedures but a little more interesting and better exposure to some exits.
Everyone bashes the Big4 but depending on your group, you have exposure to things most others would never see, such as relationships with PE groups that you've done dozens of deals with.
tbh that's the biggest problem I had with my Big 4 days, it was hard to figure out what dept was worth pursuing since so many of the names in advisory seemed almost interchangeable to me so it was very hard to distinguish, but you're absolutely right in that there was a lot of interesting work if you looked hard enough.
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