That's right. It's summer time.
Although doing deals and pounding out diligence is sweet, the Hamptons are sweeter.
How can we save time to get out of the office faster?
Putting together a list of best practices and techniques (applicable to junior PE & banking professionals). There are a few precedent lists out there, so repaste and steel credit for other peoples' thoughtful responses.
1. Keeping paper / Excel tracker of tasks.
There are different flavors, and everyone has their own system, but keep track of tasks by time / priority.
2. Send out all external to-dos in the AM or before the weekend (eg, consultants / accountants / bankers / lawyers).
Minimizes chance of someone else's mess blowing up my weekend.
3. Expectations
Set expectations double how long you think it will take and push back as much as possible.
4. Research
Ask friends for their research logins / access. Getting good research always a pain
5. Slide templates
I save down slide templates for generic internal deliverables (company profile, diligence deck, memo, etc.) Makes it faster to fill out a new one.
6. BamSEC
BamSEC for public co financials. I don't use public co data that often anymore, but I do read 10-Ks for relevant public peers. This shaves a few seconds off grabbing the relevant files.
7. Logointern.com for logos.
Saw this on WSO a while back. Makes it way faster to grab a couple logos or make an industry overview slide (many logos).
8. Google alerts
Google alerts for relevant portcos / industries (grabbed this off WSO too).
9. Folder in outlook / on Desktop for each portco.
Includes all latest financials, correspondence, etc. Saves time when I get the: "Hey could you send the latest ___ for XYZ co? Thx."
Mod Note (Andy): top 50 posts of 2017, this one ranks #33 (based on # of silver bananas)
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Comments (110)
You scoundrel. +SB. This is a good list. I've borrowed a lot of these from WSO too
Could you please PM me that template!!!!????
@JB1995 Do some reading.
At the end of the thread, he posted the link to it.
@BillyAckman - thanks for the great guide:
MultipleExpansion.com
I have a basic LBO template that I use to drop in the financials for a given CIM along with template output pages. It lets me pull together basic (but not thoughtful) CIM digest materials in < 1 hour.
Hi, would you share it ?
7,548 questions across 469 investment banks. The WSO Investment Banking Interview Prep Course has everything you'll ever need to start your career on Wall Street. Technical, Behavioral and Networking Courses + 2 Bonus Modules. Learn more.
PM me
Send me too please.
sure will do
Sorry will send
Send over please
Sorry will send
Could you send it to me as well? Cheers
Can you send it here too sorry haha
Could you please send it over to me as well? Thank you!
@BillyAckman I'm transitioning to Corp Dev - and the team has nothing. I see you've been asked a million times, but can I get a copy please? Thank you.
Can I get a copy too? Thanks
Dude - read the thread: MultipleExpansion.com
Could you please send it to me as well. many thanks!
I know it's late, but I would appreciate it a lot if you pm me the LBO template. Thanks in advance!
Yes, could you send me one as well? Thanks.
Can you please also send it my way?
Would love to see this as well, thanks.
Hi, could you send it to me too please? Cheers
You mind PMing it here too?
Can you send it to me as well? Thanks.
This sounds amazing - I'd really appreciate it as well!
Could you please send that my way as well
Could you please share it? TIA
Could you please send it to me as well. Thanks a lot.
Array
Could you please send it to me as well? Thanks in advance.
I would love it if you could PM me this too -- I just made a post on how my modelling skills are lacking, so this would be useful for me.
Go Carl Icahn though!
"I did it for me...I liked it...I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive."
Can you also send it my way please
Can you please also send it my way? Many thanks!
Hi, appreciate if could please send. Thanks kindly
Can you share this to me as well via PM? Thanks.
Any chance you can please send this my way as well via PM? Really appreciate it. Thanks
.
Send it to me as well!!, you da best!!
can you send to me?
Read the thread. He posted it on MultipleExpansion.com
Do you mind to share it with me too?
.
can you send it to me please?
Can you send to me too? Thanks.
7,548 questions across 469 investment banks. The WSO Investment Banking Interview Prep Course has everything you'll ever need to start your career on Wall Street. Technical, Behavioral and Networking Courses + 2 Bonus Modules. Learn more.
Probably old news, but for checking I always compare the prior PDF with the new version I'm about to send and I go page-by-page alternating between the two (alt-tab). Makes it easy to see all of the changes.
Saves time, because then I have an answer when VP says "Why did this change" as opposed to scrambling to 20 minutes and looking unprepared.
Old news but definitely a best practice.
/delete was being a dick about time saving
Bump. Nothing else to contribute monkeys??
What do you guys use as base assumptions for your LBO with respect to financing (% bank debt vs % mez % vs revolver etc.)?
I usually do 2 - 3x TLB (bank debt) and 2 - 3x other debt (mezz vs. TLC vs. senior notes); and typically ~1x revolver commitment, but a lot of times I swag it to get a round number.
Would be great to hear from someone in LevFin with a better illustrative read ;-)
Look at a comp in your portfolio...?
Don't have anything in my portfolio to compare, just trying to take a PE view on a certain investment and need some general high-level PE financing assumptions (if there is such a thing)
really depends on the size of the company and industry, but in today's market, its safe to assume on most companies you can get 5-7x total leverage. priced at a weighted avg. cost of L+500-700
<>
Good list, however,
Would slightly disagree with this as seems like (now) data service providers are tracking if an account is logged in multiple times or at different IP addresses
-
This doesn't make sense.
sorry was referring to this
Ask friends for their research logins / access. Getting good research always a pain
-
I've never had an issue with this or heard of someone getting in trouble. I feel like it's standard procedure
For sure have fired people for multiple people logged in to the same id simultaneously.
^Lol.
yelloweat is right though. We just lost our PitchBook account for this.
Lol. Have never heard of that happening.
So PitchBook fired you as a client?
LOOL
"I did it for me...I liked it...I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive."
Make sure every excel has the majority of its outputs formatted so you can paste in as a picture. Makes updating books take 20 minutes rather than a couple hours
For that matter, add "Copy as Picture" to the Quick Access Toolbar, it will show up as a green circle icon. Click it and select to copy as printed rather than as shown on the screen. Voila.
I don't get this. Why?
Any changes in the Excel data are already linked directly to the Powerpoint file as long as they are in the same folder.
GoldenCinderblock: "I keep spending all my money on exotic fish so my armor sucks. Is it possible to romance multiple females? I got with the blue chick so far but I am also interested in the electronic chick and the face mask chick."
Literally never do this. Makes all your files so big and cumbersome.
Yeah, but then I hope you save as PDF. Faster to load, no BS animation, WYSIWYG. For small changes, use Adobe Acrobat editing for text.
GoldenCinderblock: "I keep spending all my money on exotic fish so my armor sucks. Is it possible to romance multiple females? I got with the blue chick so far but I am also interested in the electronic chick and the face mask chick."
Not to mention a nightmare for versioning.
No they aren't unless you embedded the objects, which is obviously a terrible idea unless you embed your entire workbook.
Just use preslink for this instead.
Agreed - embedding is a nightmare.
Dude.....it's called FactSet
Preslink has saved me so much pain.
You should never use someone else's logins. Someone at my firm did that, the research provider tracked the IP address, sent a hostile letter threatening legal proceedings, and the letter landed on the CEO's desk. Needless to say, he doesn't work here anymore.
Lol bank's do this all the time. The research provider is never going to send a threatening letter to one of their largest existing / potential customers. At best it will be a "please stop this" and an offer to have one of their sales people try to convert you to their platform.
Yeah I've never heard of one of the data platforms actually putting a stop to this. This is common practice
THIS SHOULD BE UNDER PE.
Thank you for the list. Much appreciated!
/delete post is probably beyond the scope of this forum, see last link to www.spreadsheetguru.com
Any other time savers, monkeys?
Instead of making that chart your VP asked for, I'm a big advocate for reading WSO instead.
Touche
Edit: joke but example of a time saver: The pivot chart connected to Sql updated after I pressed f5
I dont get the joke...
F5 executes a query in SQL. If you have a pivot table with a pivot chart sourcing from said pivot table you can populate the pivot table under data -> connections -> external [server.databasename.databasetable]. Note this isnt the exact path but im not on my computer. Essentially F5 would refresh the workbook with new data (even though you wont actually see the data in the workbook) and automatically update the chart.
Edit; sorry I do that a lot i type a lot of this on my phone... from there your macro to take a picture and paste into a PowerPoint deck would run, and even further your email macro would send it to your boss. [Although that's F5 and potentially 2 clicks], the joke (in hindsight not very funny) being you can still be productive while reading this site at work. Let me know if that makes sense.. If you want to actually do any of that let me know and I'll see if I can explain it better/give you code.
Last Edit I promise: look into powerpivot because I doubt you will have access to SQL but you may have a data feed that it supports.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Power-Piv...
I should of typed out joking, but it wasn't a funny joke anyway.
Lol - all good. You seem like the VBA master.
Regarding using the same excel file over and over again, you should seriously consider versioning in case the file becomes corrupted or you want to re-visit an assumption down the road. Also might help with any potential audits.
Function FileExist(FilePath As String) As Boolean
'PURPOSE: Test to see if a file exists or not
'SOURCE: www.TheSpreadsheetGuru.com/The-Code-Vault
'RESOURCE: http://www.rondebruin.nl/win/s9/win003.htm
Dim TestStr As String
'Test File Path (ie "C:\Users\Chris\Desktop\Test\book1.xlsm")
On Error Resume Next
TestStr = Dir(FilePath)
On Error GoTo 0
'Determine if File exists
If TestStr = "" Then
FileExist = False
Else
FileExist = True
End If
End Function
Sub SaveNewVersion_Excel()
'PURPOSE: Save file, if already exists add a new version indicator to filename
'SOURCE: www.TheSpreadsheetGuru.com/The-Code-Vault
Dim FolderPath As String
Dim myPath As String
Dim SaveName As String
Dim SaveExt As String
Dim VersionExt As String
Dim Saved As Boolean
Dim x As Long
TestStr = ""
Saved = False
x = 2
'Version Indicator (change to liking)
VersionExt = "_v"
'Pull info about file
On Error GoTo NotSavedYet
myPath = ActiveWorkbook.FullName
myFileName = Mid(myPath, InStrRev(myPath, "\") + 1, InStrRev(myPath, ".") - InStrRev(myPath, "\") - 1)
FolderPath = Left(myPath, InStrRev(myPath, "\"))
SaveExt = "." & Right(myPath, Len(myPath) - InStrRev(myPath, "."))
On Error GoTo 0
'Determine Base File Name
If InStr(1, myFileName, VersionExt) > 1 Then
myArray = Split(myFileName, VersionExt)
SaveName = myArray(0)
Else
SaveName = myFileName
End If
'Test to see if file name already exists
If FileExist(FolderPath & SaveName & SaveExt) = False Then
ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs FolderPath & SaveName & SaveExt
Exit Sub
End If
'Need a new version made
Do While Saved = False
If FileExist(FolderPath & SaveName & VersionExt & x & SaveExt) = False Then
ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs FolderPath & SaveName & VersionExt & x & SaveExt
Saved = True
Else
x = x + 1
End If
Loop
'New version saved
MsgBox "New file version saved (version " & x & ")"
Exit Sub
'Error Handler
NotSavedYet:
MsgBox "This file has not been initially saved. " & _
"Cannot save a new version!", vbCritical, "Not Saved To Computer"
End Sub
[disclaimer: google is amazing, and this likely will need to be tweaked slightly to your file paths etc.]
Edit: on #1 change activeworkbook to activedocument
lastly start using OneNote for your tasks/list
If it isn't painfully obvious at this point start automating the repetitive tasks that take you a lot of time.
Edit: Easier yet just buy all the add in a from www.spreadsheetguru.com I think it will automate a good portion of that list.
Hey betches,
Some buddies are I are putting together training materials / relevant Excel resources, including my LBO template. Check it out here:
https://multipleexpansion.com/
Amazing. People, throw this guy some SBs.
Thanks @Sil
Also folks -- feel free to reply with want you want next in terms of modeling guides / resources, and we'll throw it up there. The site is going to remain free to access forever. It's been too hard to track down good, step-by-step guides for too long.
I like the typed out instructions as opposed to the myriad of videos that most places post. Videos are good if you're starting out with zero knowledge, but if I just want a quick refresh, I'd rather not wade through a bunch of videos (CTRL+F is just easier).
A merger model would be nice to have as well. I feel like the standard operating model and DCF already exist in so many capacities and are relatively simple, so those could probably be skipped. Thanks for doing this.
Merger model is a good call - definitely one of the next items on our list.
First off, huge thanks and awesome work with what you've put together at multipleexpansion.com. It is an awesome site. Would love to see an M&A piece as well.
An additional request I have would be a simple walk through of the transaction process. This was something I always had to try to piece together from different resources while I was prepping for interviews and think it might be beneficial for some people. Something just covering the basics of who are all the parties involved, their goals/responsibilities, timeline (on average), what information gets exposed and when, etc. You could potentially do a two-part series walking through the same deal, with one part from the sell-side pov, and the other part from the buy-side. Just a thought.
Thanks!
Complex debt tranches and cash water falls please. Credit analysis in general. Analyzing and improving working capital. Real estate investing. thanks in advance!!
Not all heros wear capes
Don't break yourself on the way to making yourself
Thanks +SB
More advanced LBO stuff could be good:
Ability to pay, how to properly set up different cases, LBO outputs
Like @Sil said, a merger model would also be helpful.
Thanks a lot Billy! Have just discovered your site - incredibly valuable content!
Thanks for this site. Very helpful for incoming bankers. Really appreciate the work and am looking forward to new content.
adding a few others to the list...
Does anyone who knows VBA code have any good suggestions for ways to use VBA to save time? Doesn't have to just be recorded macros.
Formatting macros, but interested to know if people have more of ideas
Trace first precedent
Sub AUDIT_TRACE_1st_Precedent()
On Error Resume Next
Selection.ShowPrecedents
ActiveCell.NavigateArrow TowardPrecedent:=True, ArrowNumber:=1, LinkNumber _
:=1
End Sub
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