WSO Podcast | E159: VP at Elite Boutique IB...From Montreal to New York, Paris and London
About
In this episode, we follow Charles on his winding international investment banking career path. From undergrad at McGill, to working as an IB analyst in New York, to attending HEC for his Masters of Science in Paris to his eventual move to London, we find out why he jumped when he did and how he survived the long hours to find the right firm where the culture was a great fit.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 159) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, we follow Charles on his winding international investment banking career path from undergrad at McGill to working as an IB analyst in New York to attending Agc for his master's of science in Paris to his eventual move to London. We find out why he jumped when he did and how he survived the long hours to find the right firm where the culture was a great fit. Enjoy. All right, Charles, welcome to the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Thank you. How are you? I'm hanging in there. So let's start off with just a quick summary bio so the listeners can kind of get a frame of reference here.
Charles: [00:01:07] Sure. I'm just very briefly did my undergrad in Montreal, Canada, and got my first stint in New York in a fixed term contract, I did capital advisory and ratings advisory for a French universal bank that was back in 2011, went back to Europe after that one year because it was a fixed term contract and got my master's degree at a Paris where it did sort of hit a restart button on my career. And then we started the I through things I knew based on my experience in New York that I wanted to focus on was one did not want to work for a big bank. I did enjoy advisory. I wanted to focus on advisory only and did not want to join a board. I just wanted to be very much focused on the advisory side of things. So pretty much only focused on boutiques at the time did a few internships and studies internships after AGC one Blackstone in their restructuring team, which eventually became PG&E, and then a small stint at Bridgepoint, which is a pan-European well now global European private equity firm and got my first analyst role at a. Global, but mostly European boutique, where it's been two and a half years in Paris, I focused mostly on M&A financing and restructuring advisory, with the core focus being on sponsor transactions. And that moved after the end of
my annual cycle for another boutique, this one being an American one again with a global footprint. But American Accor this time more focused on financing and restructuring transaction. That being said, still very much exposed to M&A transaction as a whole. I spent three and a half years in the London office and moved to the New York office just in time for lockdown in early 2020.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:02] Oh my gosh, brutal timing. Yeah. So you're in. You're now a VP there, correct? That is correct. Yeah. Ok, so let's start all the way back. So why are you so global? Where are you from originally? What's the deal? Why? Why have you gone? You know? You know, Canada, Paris, London, New York now. I mean, you've got some awesome cities, but yeah, I'd love to hear.
Charles: [00:03:25] I don't have much of a global experience at the very, You know, from a training perspective. I'm just a regular Frenchman who happens to speak a bit of English. That really is the story I did. You know, I was keen to do international studies. I think there was the one main trigger for me and the exposure of going to McGill in Montreal was definitely a bit of a game changer for me because I went from suburbia Paris to a very international school. And at that point in time, I think that. It could open up my mind to different careers and also different cities when thinking about my future career, so families
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:06] And families and friends
Charles: [00:04:08] And families and friends. Absolutely, yeah. One of the main reason I was actually attracted to finance as a home was that it was a very international career overall. You know, at the time, people were talking about how they went from Hong Kong to London to New York and the fact that the industry, especially banking for that matter, is very structured. So an analyst at a bank is going to be an analyst at another firm. You know, mostly what the tasks are going to be know mostly what the pay is going to be made. It's very transferable as an industry. And that appealed to me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:42] But tell me, I mean, you're an undergrad, right, during the financial crisis. So what's going through your mind is that like, you're like, I want to go finance in 07, and then all of a sudden you're seeing everything unfold in 08 09 and you're graduating in 2010, right? So what's going through your head? I mean, almost impossible to get a job then?
Charles: [00:05:00] That's a very good question. And it
was definitely a very unique experience in that aspect. When I joined all of the, you know of the young graduates were talking about how they were going to Lehman and other institutions. And then or, you know, a couple of months into my undergrad, you know, everything went south. So it was tough and it was very tough luck was somewhat on my side. I think one good thing that I had was twofold. One is it was a transition for the finance industry. So from 08 to 2010, it was a bit of a. Adjustment period, so they were quite structural changes that happened in that period and being a student, a witness of that and to being a student, I could also play the waiting game to some extent. And the second aspect being luck, which is, you know, I decided to write a thesis when I was in McGill, focused on the leverage finance industry and created ratings which were partly to blame for the crisis. And I wanted to dive a bit deeper into this and somehow managed to find a job for French universal bank that was looking for leverage. Finance and ratings industry advisory analyst ideally a Frenchman with an international background. So the odds of I had that I had that profile again. So when you wrote
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:16] That thesis that was kind of dead on What they wanted, exactly, did you did you write that thesis knowing that that would make you more attractive to potential investment banks?
Charles: [00:06:24] Not even to be honest, not even I did. The thesis was just under supervisory of one part and I said, You know, this area of interest to me and the that actually does an area of research for me. So it actually works pretty well. And again, that's honestly that's pure luck.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:39] And you had a good school. Being at a good school helps, right?
Charles: [00:06:43] Yes, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:45] Ok, OK. So you're graduating and do you have any internships lined up? So 09, you're a junior. Yes, that's right. Did you have a summer analyst stint typical or like how did your summers look like when you weren't when you weren't at school?
Charles: [00:07:00] Yeah. So as you pointed out, recruitment was very tough back then. I was a good student, but I was not a top student. Three six
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:09] Three seven. Well, what was your GPA around?
Charles: [00:07:12] I think I got a three point four.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:13] Ok. So, yeah, so yeah, don't even make the cut-off for some banks. Ok, so you have double for sure. You have like a double whammy. You have you're at a great school, but you're at horrible timing. Not the worst timing, but still pretty bad timing. And then the GPA is not, super high. Ok. Keep going.
Charles: [00:07:31] Um, I was not keen on going to Toronto. I was not interested by
The city and his career so that, you know, being a McGill was mechanically. Was it a good school to go to Toronto, but Toronto not being on my hit list? It was very tricky for me to find an attractive summer internship program and say New York, London, for that matter. So I decided to explore different options. I did a small venture capital stint in 09 In Montreal, which I really enjoyed, and the year before I just had a small stint in the securities services division of a French bank in Paris.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:12] How did you get these internships?
Charles: [00:08:14] Network, a network of them through network, one of the first one through people that I had met the recruitment fair in Montreal and knowing someone in France and putting me in touch. And the second one being same thing from mine had did an entrepreneurship recruitment firm. Fair Story. And I did meet the partner in the VC firm and we just hit it off
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:40] And tell me a little bit about specifically like that networking. You weren't. It doesn't sound like you're using a LinkedIn heavily at this stage or anything like that. It was much more like the career fair and going live. Personal connections and potentially friends.
Charles: [00:08:53] Yes, I think that's right. I think we're starting to use linkedin,
And I've always been a big user of content so early on I used it. It definitely helped to map out options and also to get a sense of what people were doing to get into those roles. I think especially when you don't have the background like you have to exist today, which I think is a good platform to get that, that sort of insight. But at the time, I think LinkedIn did tell you, Oh, people who did this then went on to do that. So it feels like this is a good platform. So I did use a bit of this, but of course, the best connections remain in person connections and fares when people are actually legitimately coming to campus to air the best positions you can have
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:38] And they're not like, Did you feel like they were super competitive, though? Or do you just how did you how did you like make that connection such that like it actually translated to an internship? Because it's like, I guess the first one, it sounds like somebody back home knew somebody and they kind of put in a good word for you.
Charles: [00:09:53] Yeah, there was a fair amount of hustling. I'm not going to lie.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): That's what I want to hear about. That's what I want to hear about that. Like angling and hustling. You know, it's, you know, you present yourself. I was one of the
Charles: [00:10:06] Only kids at media and people made fun of me at me at the time who printed his own business Cards. And you know, there's not much to say on it. You were that guy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:15] You were that guy, OK? Yeah. So do you recommend doing that to kids right now? Print your own business card and hand them out.
Charles: [00:10:22] I wouldn't recommend it, and to a point, I think LinkedIn has become such a big, a big thing now that you don't need it on top of it right now with lockdown. Lots of use for it. But that being said, it did put me as the one kid who took himself, maybe too seriously and whether people liked it or not, it's still printed in their memory. Oh, you know, it's that kid.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:44] You're that guy who had had a
Charles: [00:10:46] Business card first. Yeah, he was indeed it. That helped some extent. Well, not the business card self-help. But it did show myself as someone who was keen and very serious about money. You were that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:59] You were eager. So they almost thought it was more cute than anything like how eager you are. You think and that's you stood out, you stood out.
Charles: [00:11:07] Exactly. I stood up, not in a good way or not, but I did stood up and that's great. People do like people who are keenly motivated and that that is a motivation to convey.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:18] Ok, so besides putting your own business cards, any other kind of little things you did besides going to these job fairs where you were, you being very aggressive about how you went up and talk to them and handed out your business card where you like? How are you? How are you acting? I think especially for my first analyst role
Charles: [00:11:34] In New York, the one thing that somewhat gave me some form of ED was who say industry knowledge. I was keeping up with the news. It was reading a lot of Deal book at the time. I was reading a bit of Bloomberg. I was using a lot of the university library resources. Did you get access to tons and tons of other news outlets
Or yeah, or any other sources, for that matter? And you don't realize that in the
real world, they're really expensive
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:03] By Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, but then also Bloomberg terminals and
Charles: [00:12:06] Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And. And, you know, I had some knowledge about what I wanted to do in the areas of interest to me, so when you're fresh out of undergrad, you say, Oh, I'm really interested in understanding why second lien loans have disappeared of typical LBO structures before, like, Oh wow, this kid has done a bit of research, you know, doesn't mean he's good, doesn't mean you know what made that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:30] Internal motivation as an undergrad? That's pretty rare to have that level of knowledge. What may what do you think gave you that internal motivation? Was your family in finance? How did you even know that stuff? No, I don't have family finance,
Charles: [00:12:43] Which of course, would have helped, and I could see when people do have family in finance because they have them send mechanics of a deal or a lot of the vocab much, much faster. To be honest, it was just reading. And then every time there was something that I thought was of interest, I would just take a bit
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:01] Think it was because 06 07 was like a hot time, like right when you were going into college that interested you and you were like, Wow, the pay is amazing. These kids are getting paid, you know, $150000 right out of
Charles: [00:13:11] Undergrad. You see an aspect of it, to be honest. I mean, I'm not going to say it, never matter. Of course it does matter. But I don't know. There was something about financial engineering, which I thought was interesting and wanted to dig. And being from an office background, I think it's just first of. No, again, one thing that is both was both a downside, but also an upside to my time as an undergrad student doing the financial crisis was there. There was a lot of changes around that time. So a lot of people were writing about who this was happening in 06 and 07, and this has suddenly disappeared or tomorrow's deals are not going to be structured the same way. And I was like, Oh, wow, what is that? And I think that's just where it came from.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:55] Interesting. And so you're kind of coming up. So your junior year summer, you have an internship, but it's not like a typical investment banking summer analyst role. Yeah, that's right. So it was remind me what that was.
Charles: [00:14:08] It was called Stirrup CFO in Montreal.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:11] Ok, so you're kind of coming out of that and what's your game plan going into senior year? You're thinking, I'm not going to have a full time offer. What what's your thought here?
Charles: [00:14:18] Yeah. So I finished my undergrad in December 2010, so I did have a full year still ahead, which is a bit a bit of a line. It was supposed to be a four year program, but with the French Baccalaureate you do get some credits. And you know, I was honestly as I was before,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:36] So you had six months kind of before you really graduated with nothing. That's right. Before you, you officially like were on. So like you had almost no classes and you could do whatever you had to do to get it. Get a job.
Charles: [00:14:47] Yeah, exactly. I finished in. So I did an exchange at Chelsea, and during my time at Chelsea, I did find this beautiful job offer on the bank's website that I was in New York and the job was starting in October, when I could only start in January 2011. And, you know, we hit it off. My profile was what were looking after. The interviews went really smoothly and they accepted to wait for me for another two months or two or three months. So I literally finished school a couple of days before Christmas and got started in New York. You know, a couple of days after New Year's Eve?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:27] Wow. And so that was that was an analyst program more like capital structure in rating, advisory type, type work. So can you explain to listeners what that meant? Like, what was your day to day? How is it different from like an M&A pure M&A role?
Charles: [00:15:40] Yeah. So I think people tend to underestimate, especially coming out of school, how big the creative world is. It's a bigger asset class overall than equities. So that means a lot of people are investing in those fixed income instruments, whether that's loans or bonds. And mechanically, there's a lot of a lot of people on the sell side who are advising or helping underwrite those instruments. And it was again, there was an area of interest to me, having done a bit of my thesis around this and LBO
structures where something of interest to me as well. So my day to day was really advising it was twofold. One was working with the leveraged finance teams on structuring the LBO, so helping them fill out the models and then once the model and the marketing materials that were prepared for the syndication purposes. We would seek to optimize the structure so as to achieve a single B rating, because banks these days don't really lend that they just underwrite and then they push the paper to other investors, and for that paper to be sold usually needs to be in the single B tranche from a risk rescue directive. Yeah, yeah. And second aspect of my role was advising bigger corporates. Some of them, you know, some of them being investment grade on the cusp of an investment grade that we're looking at both private market and public market options and also playing looking at strategic options within the constraints of rating advisors. So you want to acquire this company and you want to raise X billion of debt? How is that going to affect your rating? You should you seek to push, you have still room to push from a ratings perspective, more debt to fund that acquisition or instead, should you watch out for it because you don't want to get downgraded and refinanced at a higher coupon. So it was actually really interesting because 2011 was a bit of a seesaw year. The first six months were somewhat back to business. A lot of people love projections getting done. A lot of LBO is getting done and working for a French well, European bank. In the summer of 2011, the Greek crisis hit, which mechanically meant that a lot of those European banks being funded on the money market in the US were overnight deprived from funding access. So working for a bank whose core model is about lending but not being able to lend anymore proved to be quite difficult. So quite a few people were laid off during that, that second half.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:14] Explain it to me. So something happened. The Greek crisis happened. And so what got flipped upside down so that you guys couldn't lend anymore?
Charles: [00:18:21] So a lot of the larger lending banks in Europe on the US market that do fund themselves on the money market and the US money market, they
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:33] Find themselves OK. U.s. money market Yeah, that's right.
Charles: [00:18:36] And because of the potential exposure of the Greek debt crisis that those money markets overnight just dried up for any large institution with sizable Greek exposure, which mechanically was the case for a pan-European bank, that's going to be quite tricky and mechanically activity for my last four months where it was much lower.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:00] All right. So you're really busy for the first six months and then kind of dried up. And so I assume that's why you're only there for about a year.
Yet that's one aspect,
Charles: [00:19:08] But it was a fixed term contract in the first instance, partly for visa reasons. It was a minute.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:14] Did you get a bonus at least? No, no, no. There's no bonus part of it.
Charles: [00:19:19] It's called the VIP, which is a very specific French contract allowing French. Why should European students to work for European institutions in
India, in New York or U.S. world for that matter? It doesn't have to be the US.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:35] And so you saw this as a potential time for a reset. That's right. So talk to me a little bit about what your thought process was. Why not go to get an MBA? Why go to back home?
Charles: [00:19:48] Yeah. In hindsight, I could have, you know, I could have explored different options. I did take my Gmail when I was in undergrad, which gave me a bit of option to think about business school as well. I could have thought about going to London, which is a more flexible. You know, hiring market, especially having just an undergrad degree and McGill being pretty well received as institution there, I could have leveraged that and I could have tried to just bounce back in London, but I didn't
Really think of it. My having my stint in the U.S., I just picture I would just go back to Europe, and I applied to master's degree in that MBAs just because the european market actually typically the French market is very much focused on Master of Sciences rather than an MBA. Right. We do have good MBAs. You know, it's a good one.
Instead is another good one. Yeah. But a lot of the students are actually not French, and people who go to say INSEAD actually don't seek to work in front of a lot of them.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:49] So AGC master's in science is much more for people who want to stay local. That's right. Yeah. Ok, so how big was your class? Just out of curiosity?
Charles: [00:20:59] So I joined the last year of what's called the clinical program, so specifically in the international business class that I was in, we were about 50. But as a as a graduating class, I joined a few hundred people in their last year of study space. Got it. Ok. So tell me a little bit about kind of that whole
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:16] Transition back to to Paris and then specifically what you were looking to jump into. It sounds like you were aiming for investment banking, but you did have a few. You did have an internship in private equity, it sounds like as well. So I'd love to hear about kind of what the thought process was coming out of there.
Charles: [00:21:33] I, as I said, I was one thing I did enjoy was advisory. I did enjoy advising both large corporates as well as colleagues on who say financial engineering matters. I did like that that aspect of the job. And I also did not like work for a big bank, which I had a huge trading division and I was working on a team which was not at the core of the firm strategy. And it was somewhat frustrating. So I told myself, All right, I want to focus on advising, but I don't want to. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to work for a huge institution in which I'm just a small number in a big, a big institution. So I somewhat forced myself not to but too much larger banks, including the GP's then and the Goldman Sachs world, which at the time, you know, none of my
friends agreed with my approach. But I was I was pretty confident on the back of my new experience that this is what I wanted to do. I got a few enough studies internships offers. I picked the Blackstone one
In the restructuring team, which had a really good reputation. Again, having done a bit of advisory and a bit of advisory, I thought restructuring was an interesting
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:50] Area to explore and this was in London. So you were open to moving to London. Right. You were open to going there for the right opportunity present itself, so you go this is called an end of study internship after your masters, and it's pretty typical to do one to three internship. What's typical for? After that, he
Charles: [00:23:06] Started to do one. To be frank, people usually try to bank on this one to be the last stone to their CV and have a very credible CV in this. It was just a summer internship, which is, I would say, similar to the to the penultimate year summer
internship program. In my case, I had done the New York experience and in Blackstone was open to having young graduates s part of their summer internship program. And you know, this way, this is way of planning, that's how I get the role increasing my experience in New York in a credit focused role did help. Definitely did help. And did you see as a brand also did help a lot. There's a lot of graduates working in Blackstone, so having the AGC logo on this unit clearly did have a bit of an impact.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:01] You typically do. Typically, they give you like a full time offer right after that and you just roll right into it.
Charles: [00:24:06] Yes. So exactly they usually do accommodate for those. And, you know, usually they give you a couple of months of sometimes going to be four months, six months. So typically you do so internship and say, we like you, you're not going to
roll back straight into it, but sometimes they do. But that's quite rare. They usually say starting come in Jan. Or sometimes you just say, come next year, you know, come, come in June and you'll get a vacation.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:29] Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. Before you start, you know, that's such an awesome like breather right before you started it. That's right. That's right. What was it like over the summer there? Like in terms of I worked in construction for a couple of years back in New York, and it was interesting the work. I felt like the complex capital structures, all that stuff. The understanding different types of credit was interesting. Were you do mostly M&A or mostly restructuring during that summer
Charles: [00:24:56] Or was it too short? It was very much M&A focused. I got stuffed on a Kkr owned German company and we were advising the lead creditor on that. On the on the raw end, it was absurdly complex and there was no analyst that works great with the associate who was a senior associate turning into VP and an MD. So I got all the exposure in the world, but it was good. It was good. I learned a ton.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:30] And so do they give you an offer at the end of it or what do you think happen?
Charles: [00:25:33] The issue is I got absolutely burned during that time period. I don't really blame it on black specifically. I think a lot of analysts had left before some internships, so a lot of the interns that were in the team could get burned like I was. And so that made me think about whether or not I wanted to do this. What do you mean, you guys?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:51] What do you mean you got? What do you mean you got burned like during that summer?
Charles: [00:25:55] I worked very, very long hours.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:57] One hundred and twenty a week. One hundred twenty hours a week, do you think?
Charles: [00:26:04] And yeah, that's something like this, that I would finish late, start
early and work on, you know, the thing and as you know it, restructuring is there's always a big element of stress just because everything was due yesterday and especially when you're not yet properly trained, you know, you do get you do get a lot of work. And because you don't get around the first time, there is a fair amount of situation. So as an intern, it was very intense. And in parallel, I was. I had started applications for that other European boutique I joined. And so when at the end of the summer I did get getting offers, I decided to go for the other ones then because I.I thought, you know, is this going to be like this throughout my career or is it not? And the truth is. I could have stayed because I think the hours actually did get better afterwards after they did hire a few analysts and the other interns that day actually got a more manageable workload going forward.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:12] So you did get an offer or you didn't get an offer.
Charles: [00:27:16] We never got to this, I said I got another one, too, they never had to offer me one.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:20] Got it. So you had another one at now, the private equity kind of.
Charles: [00:27:24] No, no, no. I did get the offer at the European boutique in Germany. And so I did have a gap. I did have four months of gap between. So you decided to work and I said, you know, I'm going to try private equity because it's sexy and, you know, internships are usually made to know what it is that you want or do not want to do. And I went into private equity to see what it was like. I about that. It was good. Were you burnt out by
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:50] The time you started there because of because of what happened, you went, you went back home, you were, so you were back in
Charles: [00:27:56] Paris on your own back home. I did get two weeks of holidays in
between the end of my internship and my experience. And you did help. And I think private equity was really interesting because you could see how some deals, especially on the B side, tend to be. Thought I very, you know, people do think about it very early on. Just a concept of it, you know, a lot of the guys do get with a theme, an investment theme or key topic they just want to have conviction on and they want you to dive in. And so sometimes you're going to do a lot of research. Way before it is an actual company where before there is an actual deal or be made, but by the time there is an actionable situation. And you're ready because you've done some of your deed. You did get ton of your data. You did and turn some of the stones that you wanted to turn. And so you know you’re your investment appetite is. It's sharper. What was your impression of private equity
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:59] Where you're saying, Hey, this is something you might want to do in the future by the end, you said, Hey, I'm ready to go to banking.
It was twofold,
Charles: [00:29:06] I thought it was a really interesting job, and I could consider it as a career option down the line. I also told myself the back of what I just said, that I really like the deal driven aspect of things and I was frustrated with the slower pace quite a bit and the fact that, you know, you had to do those expert calls and do a lot of reading on your own and talk to people way before there was an actual situation and there was a part of me that was a bit frustrated with that pace. I understand why people do it, and I think it's definitely part of the job should be part of the job. But I, You know, banking
is a deal flow driven exposure, and it really did like that aspect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:44] So like the research, almost like the research aspect of private equity where you're digging into a thesis and that type of stuff didn't appeal to you as much as like the fast paced deal aspect of banking. That's right. That's right. I did like the fast paced aspect of
Charles: [00:29:58] Deal flow in general.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:59] Well, that's good because you had that's what you had an offer for come that January, so. So you kind of do get any time off before your jump from private equity internship?
Charles: [00:30:08] Not a lot, just like a week before Christmas, but the story there is i did start a deal at which point, you know, the concept, meeting people and putting things on paper and the moment that that transaction went live, I was the analyst
On that deal on the advisory side. So I received a lot of the poor points I had prepared during my internship as an analyst.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:33] But that's amazing. You're like, I know this work product really well. This is genius.
Charles: [00:30:38] Exactly. That was exactly it. And so that was that was for me that was quite unique. You know, I did see the deal from end to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:44] End. You start really from end to end from both sides. Very cool. So you ok, so you started at this boutique in Paris, the state, you kind of which nice. You're kind of near family and everything. Tell me a little bit about your analyst stint there. And then you know why? Why transition to London after? As for your associate role with another bank and with the thought process around that, I don't want to keep it too much longer. I know you've been on for a while.
Charles: [00:31:12] No, that's fine. We like working there. I was exposed on a wide variety of topics across industries, across M&a, across financing, across restructuring. I worked on restructuring the large listed company on the Project Finance refinancing of a big toll road in France on a lot of the cell sites and by sites. So good to see very, you know, very different situations. And it could have stayed there. I did enjoy my time. The one thing that was driving me entry out was the international component international
component. You said the international. It was a really good bank in Paris, but I was speaking French all day and I told myself, you know, I'm 26, 27.I'm still young. I could be in a more. It's easier for me to go places now than it will be even a couple of years down the line. So I told myself, you know, if you are to go somewhere and do it now, I did actually start discussions with that boutique on going to other offices, either in New York or London. And they did say, you know, yes, that's definitely feasible, but it's going to take maybe another 18 months to two years. And I was telling myself, Yeah, actually, I think I want to do it now. And then I got head hunted for a role for the American boutique, which I like the brand. The role was really worth looking for and the people that I met there, it just it was really a good match and made the transition a lot easier. When I did tell myself before, I didn't want to jump. I didn't want change because I thought the one I was in was really good. And then when I met this people, I think this is it, actually.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:54] Yeah. So you made the after two and a half years as an analyst, you kind of made that jump from Paris to London. Now speaking almost all English. That's right.
Charles: [00:33:03] And it's a big switch there, but yeah, it was good, I think one is a very good place for international carriers overall. You get people from across Europe and of course, from the U.K. and from other jurisdictions. And up until recently, London. It still is the case, but was, you know, London is the core place for deal flow for continental Europe. So deals that get done out of Germany or Spain may sometimes be partially done out of London. You do see a huge deal for which is not just UK driven. The second aspect, which I'm going to briefly mention is that and that was very restructuring focus, is that the London market. And that was pre Brexit because a lot of them, I would say loans and LBO finance that is drafted under UK law and because the jurisdiction and the law that is in place is very structured and well-tested. Most of the restructuring done for Europe was done out of London. So. The lawyers, the bankers, the hedge funds were in London and so mechanically let the deal flow was there was an outsized chair for London for restructuring compared to the rest of Europe. That's going to change with Brexit now that, you know. Uk law may not be recognised by the courts anymore, so there may be a big change. Oh, it's interesting. I didn't know that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:31] So you were doing kind of a it sounds like a lot of restructuring as an associate. Tell me a little bit about the transition from analyst to associate after. So you're done two and a half years at one boutique. Did they accelerate your promotion? Did you jump? Did you join as an associate or did you
Charles: [00:34:44] Have to do a job as an associate? Zero, which was a bit of a jump and a big jump because it was three and a half year cycle. so, you know, no, not a Massive jump. Somewhat in line. It did account for the fact that it did have a four year analyst role in New York.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:01] And did you did you when you were an associate There, did you like, were you still do? Is still small teams, right? So you're still probably getting your hands dirty in the model and all that stuff from time to time? Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that whole thing and then how you were an associate for three and a half years, let's call it before kind of getting promoted. And then with the promotion, you again jumped to a different city. So what that tell me about that decision? Was it again around wanting that international exposure we want to get to New York? Yes, very much so, I think
Charles: [00:35:35] There's a few questions in there, the first one on just the associate transition. I think there was the toughest one for me to be frank, just because suddenly you do have people to actually manage. It's not just in terms which you have sometimes for a couple of weeks during the summer internship program. This time you do have analysts working for you on a dole team and you manage the workload. The quality of the work and training, coaching, managing expectations was a big change for me. I did have interns when I was an analyst in Paris Working with me, but there was there was a very different change in her first six months were a transition on that front. You get a I think a lot of people, I mean, I think it's quite natural, but you assume that people think, understand and work the same way you comprehend orders from either the clients or MDS. And the truth is, that's not always the case. So learning about communication was a big. The first six Months were quite a transition,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:32] Especially since you were now all English from French to English. It's like that adds an extra complexity, right?
Charles: [00:36:38] Like the know, for sure. And so there's the accent aspect of things in language. And then there's the culture aspect in which in the UK in general, people are much softer. And even when they're not happy with your work, cetera, you don't see it in a straightforward way. You will take a few angles to explain, Yeah, this is not what I had in mind. We should rethink this instead of being very blunt and people in Paris who are very blunt about what they wanted did not. So I did it come off as. Blunt, I would say at the very beginning and again, I think the first three to six months were that you weren't
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:15] Polished or soft enough for the London. You were a little bit rough around the edges. They'll call You. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to tell you what the transition to New York, the trends did you fit right in the transition to New York? You felt like it was rough and tumble again. People were very direct in New York.
or no, no.
Charles: [00:37:31] I think, you know, the boutique I worked for is has one really great quality, which is culture overall. There is across offices across the globe, you know, from the Paris to the Madrid to London to the New York office, people are own. All have the same code when it comes to culture, which is about respect, which is about grooming people, which is about not throwing people down a pit and hoping that they survive. And that creates for a much more, I don't know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:03] Collegial,
Charles: [00:38:04] Collegial, exactly collegial atmosphere. And so that made the transition from London to New York actually quite smooth. To be frank, I thought I Didn't notice a huge difference. Yes, people can be a bit more blunt New York, but there's no yeah, there's no harsh attitude at all. Great.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:26] Yeah, that's great. And you've been now in lockdown for about a year in New York. Tell me about that. Tell me about, you know, being. I've heard it's really tough because especially as a V.P., All the new analysts that
probably joined you in the summer are associates and you've never even met some of them right in person or have. I mean, it's all been. Dumas and skypes or whatever you guys use. So tell me how you tried to like, actually adjust because I know a lot of analysts are quitting at a very high rate, at least we're seeing it on the boards, on Wall Street, Oasis. The quitting or they're burnt out or they feel lost. They don't feel like they're getting that kind of. They don't have an associate right next to them that they are a fellow analyst that knows how to do something that they can just hop over. So I think they're losing out. I think part of the analyst experience, have you seen that with your ranks and your juniors?
Charles: [00:39:19] So I didn't get the sense that there was a lot of people very frustrated with you. Did you did or you didn't? No, I did not. It did not. I did not hear about people early frustrated about it. That being said, I still think the exposure aspect is a big element, and I do agree with you. I think one thing we learn somewhat throughout last summer was done, which we do need to communicate, especially as associates and in MVP's With analysts. I remember when I was an analyst, it was on the school all the time. Like my associate would be like, all right, come here. And he would model in front of me and would be saying, All right, I do this like this and always make sure of that because that's my check your LLC best model. And doing this on screen sharing is possible, but it's just that much trickier. I think one thing we learned was that we need to communicate and never really assume that people do have. You know, the skill set I've front ready to read to get stuff done the right way. So to your point, I think it's frustrating not to have the collegial aspect, especially with the junior team and to when it comes to training, you know, we do weekly or bi weekly zoom sessions on specific topics. We do make ourselves very much available for, I would say, site chats where these people and then when OnLive execution, when we want to teach someone, we usually try to over communicate, we say, All right, you do want to do this together and we can do screen sharing and you voice out what it is that you're working on. And I can I can try to control the scene. It's always possible, right, when you're in rush hour. But when you can, you try to do it? Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. So like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:03] You're actually there, that is going on the screen sharing and the people like walking through models together, it's just hard to see their faces right to see if they're actually getting it or not. Yes, the moment there's a chair and
Charles: [00:41:14] You give up the whole, you're like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:16] They're like this, they're like sleeping on the desk now. So that's great. Well, thank you for sharing your story. Tell me a little bit. Anything else that you feel like is important to share with the listeners or any advice or you've seen a lot of different cities, you've now seen three or five different firms in finance from your internships and your banking career. Yeah, maybe overarching advice Then,
Charles: [00:41:43] You know, made me happy in a job that I'm in right now. One is culture. It sounds a bit cliché, and I think it's hard to grasp that when you're on the outside, but enjoying your work is part of the dynamic and the interactions you have with your colleagues and the overall corporate culture, and that made a big difference. I'm happy in my role right now thanks to the culture which is about, you know, you're being tested, but you're also being tested so as to progress and people will make you want to progress. So that was a big driver. And I think when you do find a place that do value you as a future, you're always tested at the next level. And that aspect, I Think, is quite
it's quite appealing. That's definitely something I do like banking in general. The second aspect is the international aspect, especially for, we say, North American grads who have the biggest U.S. financial markets in the world waiting for them to get started. So it's easy to think that there's not a whole lot happening in the world. The truth is there is clearly not to the same scale, but there is and to the extent that you can, especially when you work for the larger banks while you even for a boutique, for that matter. But even when you work for JP and the likes considering doing a rotation for. You know, not long, maybe a couple of years, one, two years to London, Paris or any other city. That's definitely, I think, something you should try to capture or focus on if you can in your in your early years, just because you can. Interesting. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:17] Before you have a family and get tied down. Yeah. Very cool. Well, Charles, thanks so much for sharing your story. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Patrick. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.
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