Small Boutique Experiences
Hello all,
I've done a few internships at a small boutique bank (15-20 people) focused on M&A and was curious as to other people's internship experiences at similarly-sized shops. I've heard varying experiences ranging from people getting no deal exposure to people getting great modeling experience.
I'm curious to hear other people's experience quality, culture at the bank, coworkers, any good stories, etc.
You start.
Fair enough-overall pretty good experience. Mainly in charge of making pitchbooks but have done several valuations and offering memorandums. Biggest plus to a BB is actually getting involved on management calls. Biggest downsides are zero modeling, including no DCFs. Culture is great though- lots of bar trips. Looking to move on for this summer though.
Have done only boutique internships. Have done a lot of (if not mostly) research duty. Getting assigned on more projects, increasing responsibility recently. Have done no valuations or dcf... at best, looked up deal comps and graphed historical stock performance. Have a mini project by myself with only one director helping out. You get a lot of exposure to a lot of industries and upper management at companies. All in all, boutique m&a is similar across the board. Like the place you were at, culture is great, people are nice, expect a lot of quality work out of you, everyone is always busy it seems, and everyone is able to pitch in a little more work and help you out.
In summary:
nonstop pitching all hours of night, slave labor, limited deal exposure, tyrannical working environment, good kinship with other analysts, easy to sneak home early, outstanding client exposure (even at analyst and intern levels), very fragile culture which can change on a whim with the addition of one or two people who don't fit in (culture also effected by level of hatred towards senior bankers on any given week, ranging from "this nightmare is almost tolerable, maybe I can survive here for a few more months" to "I hope something very bad happens to him on his next trip"), ridiculous paranoia on everybody's part, lots of printer maintenance...
That's all I can think of for now...
This is for M&A
Limited deal or pitching experience (30%), no DCF/LBO/modeling, mostly database / customer relationship management entry (70%).
Jack of all trades is a more proper title for my position although officially am a 2nd year analyst. Over the past year tasks have included: troubleshooting pc's and printers (unofficial IT guy), designing & developing databases, sales calls, drafting pitch-books, info memos, legal docs, etc. creating proj. finance, cre, and corp val. models. Excellent deal exposure, get my hands on every deal that comes through in one way or another with heavier exposure on deals I am lead on. Great client exposure, including decent travel assignments on road shows and project site due dilly. Hours aren't too horrible, short Saturdays, and hardly any work on Sunday. Culture is tight-knit and laid back, very small group, 5-7 in office.
Where are you, Florida? Sounds like a beasting firm.
Yes, Florida. The firm does pretty well but is still relatively new and rapidly growing yet somewhat unstructured, like many emerging small shops.
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