IB keeps its’ rep because no one will admit they slaved away their undergrad earning perfect grades to simply slave away at a IB as a glorified assistant. So they make it sound ‘baller with how much money they make and how they are closing deals and what not. In reality, they are powerpoint b!tchboys (aka the deck) who make pretty presentations to the sellers of businesses. Modeling is part of the job, but not a huge part. Despite what you learn in the CFA, valuation does not equal price. Some of you were bashing me for my comp valuation I was attempting awhile ago and how I should use free cash flows. Look, we’re looking to buy a company at the lowest price possible and justify it by comps in the market, not do a DCF valuation and pay what the company is hypothetically worth 10 years from now.
IB is like spring break. Any of you ever go? Every year tons and tons of horny frat boys go South to places like Cancun, South Padre, Miami, etc. to party and hook up each night with ease like MTV makes it out to be. I’m here to tell you that it’s all a ruse. When I went on spring break, it was easily 10-15 guys per girl, and most girls kept close to their crew since they know what our agenda is. It was a far truth from what the REAL WORLD MTV made it out to be. But, no guy is going to admit they blew $2k on a spring break that was shittier than the run of the mill weekend in their college town; so they lie and say it was crazier than a GGW gang bang.
There you have it folks. The cat is out of the bag.
I work in IB. I’ve never done a 9-5 job, so I can’t really compare versus a corporate role. However I can honestly say IB is pretty miserable. I get in between 9-9:30am on most weekdays. I typically leave between 11-1am. I’m obviously not working the entire time. I spend a good amount of my downtime web surfing, talking to coworkers, chat with friends, etc. But the amount of work IBers get done is pretty incredible.
I rarely have a whole day off during the weekend. There are always some random requests that come trickling in on the weekend, and sometimes these tasks need to be done right away. I honestly think the unpredictability is worse than the hours itself. I can handle the long days and late nights. However it’s frustrating when I have no work planned for a Saturday, but I can’t make plans to go out for an extended period of time with friends just because I need to be accessible to my computer. I’ve missed plenty of fun trips (e.g. wine tasting, rafting, snowboarding, camping, hiking, etc.). I honestly think this is the worst part.
I’m not dying to go to the buyside. If i get an attractive offer that I like, I’ll go. But I don’t see it as the promise land that many of my colleagues see. The more likely scenario is I’ll head to a startup in the next couple years and get some operating experience.
Not being able to make plans does sound awful. I do wonder how some senior bankers managed to maintain relationships in their earlier years, get married, have kids etc. My fiance gets seriously pissed if i’m >10mins late to meet her or cancel plans at the last minute.
That sounds like hell. You say you don’t see the promised land on the buyside. Normally I would agree that the grass isn’t always greener, but not in your case. I don’t think it would be possible to have a worse work/life balance than you do right now.
So related to that, I interviewed for an IB role a couple months ago and my interview with the MD was on a Friday morning. During our chat, he said he had plans to take his wife and kids out on the boat on Saturday, but Thursday afternoon a job came in. He said it wasn’t anything big, low 7 figures in fees and only 3 days of work but they needed it by Wednesday. So he said he told the wife no boating b/c he’d be at the office. His reasoning was if the analysts and associates would be there all weekend, he’d put in the 8 hrs a day too.
I didn’t wind up being offered the job, not that I’d likely take it had it been offered. Though the total comp would be more than I make now, my current role is a bit too cushy and beyond reasonable on the work/life balance scale. Not to mention I’d likely make less per hour in IB than I do now based solely on the hours.
Do the hours change across the different types of investment banks or are they pretty similar?? So, would a small boutique bank, a top boutique bank, a BB IB, a premier middle market bank, and a specialist IB all have the same type of hours?? Obviously the quantity is a lot no matter where you go, but from my understanding the expectations are different from bank to bank depending upon the bank’s deal flow, size, strategy, etc.
Yes, but it was the accumulation that took a toil. Putting hopes high by setting up fun plans only to constantly cancel them at the absolute last minute because your boss tells you to come in that morning.
I don’t have any first hand experience, but from what I’ve heard, BBs ask the most of you, followed by top boutiques and then middle market.
But the flip side of that is… I think with an IB experience, you get out of it what you put in. If you put in your time at a GS/Citi/MS/JPM you’re probably going to have better exit ops compared with spending two years at Jefferies or Morgan Keegan or Raymond James, et al. hacksaw banks. When I interviewed with a BB, they described the deal flow as like drinking from a fire hose. It was constant and overwhelming, and while a lot to deal with provided great learning experiences. That is a lot better, IMO, than a bank that wets their panties in a bunch over getting to be one of a dozen joint bookrunners on a deal.
If you don’t believe me, go look at the profiles of associates/VPs at PE funds and the like and look at where they did their analyst years.
This was highly enjoyable, and certainly rings true.
While I’ve not worked in IB, I’ve worked with a number of name investment bankers, after they left to join the real world. They all talk about how “I was making so much money I couldn’t spend it fast enough, and I tried!”. No doubt these specific dudes were making big money.
They are all smart cats, with amazing work ethic, but really – it’s just some decks and maybe a fancy (often unrealistic) model, and expensive dinners. Maybe the fools on the other side of the table bite, maybe not. If not we adj the deck, tweak the model, and go looking for more fools. It seems more about having a persuasive personality, sales.
I think the hours among different functions are relatively similar. I work for a boutique middle market IB performing Buy Side/Sell Side M&A as well as management buy-outs, recaps, restructuring, debt/equity financing, and divestitures, among other things, and I work some pretty long hours. I may be in the minority, but I really enjoy the work. The financial modeling depends on the deal. Sometimes it’s more extensive for some deals whereas other times you’re throwing together public comps and representative transactions to give a valuation range and it’s not as critical.
The thing I’ve never understood about IB is why they’re all slaves to the deck?
Everywhere I’ve worked on the buyside there have been a big team of peoples (usually female) whose job it is to create powerpoint presentations for the whole company. Sometimes a separate team, sometimes combined with RFP/Database entry people.
I would guess because in banking the work is so detailed and changes so often that it would take more time to train someone else to do it than to just do it yourself. At my bank, we had people who could help us put presentations together, but when you really wanted something done very specificly and correctly, it was always just easier to do it yourself than to try to explain it to someone else. Just my experience though.