Career Advice: Opportunity to move from DCM to Corporate M&A
Dilemma
I'm a 1st year analyst working at an investment banking unit of of a local bank. I was given an offer to work at a small boutique (less than 10 employees) specializing in M&A. The boutique was founded last 2017 by former i-bankers of a top MNC bank, prior experience was mostly origination and execution of M&A deals with Asia-Pacific coverage, with deal sizes ranging from USD 200 million to USD 1 billion. The principal is well known in the local IB industry. My only worry is boutique isn't well known and am worried about my exit options. Ultimate goal is to move to corporate development/corporate strategy.
My background
Have been working for nearly 3 years. Passed CFA level I last December 2019.
First job: M&A analyst at a local poultry integrator, handled cross border M&A. Left the job after 1 and 6 months because the company drained its budget for M&A after big purchase.
Second job (Current stint): Investment banking analyst at a subsidiary of a local bank. Have been here for 1 year and 1 month. Firm focuses mostly on debt capital market deals and loan syndications. Reason for joining was to gain exposure to the debt side of deals but also firm up my financial modelling skills. Only found out after joining the firm that I was the only modeler in the firm, (e.g. boss wants to use a DDM for valuing a start-up and does not review my models on a line by line basis). Not also comfortable with the way seniors handle the execution of deals (E.g. intentionally omitting in the term sheet that equity infusion of a client will be in the form of land, term sheet only reads 'equity infusion of x' so as to mislead syndicate banks, lying also about internal approvals for loan syndications)
Background of IB industry in country
Most deals handled by local investment banks are usually capital markets related or loan syndication related. M&A deals rarely go to local banks because these usually go to the foreign banks that have regional presence here (E.g. UBS, ING, etc.).
What makes this offering firm interesting is that they have closed big deals since 2017, deal sizes of which would usually go to foreign banks