I want to see a sample of pitch book…How investment bankers prepare it?
haaa. don’t you think you are too demanding? Anyway I don’t think anyone will be willing to post one up here… they are pretty huge…
i asked to see a Pitch Book. apparently its not public information. i’m still interested in what they say.
it is bunch of pages and pages …showing how good the firm is and why the client should pick that bank…kind of manipulating the data…
golfer, that is what I’m told. basicallly, “its high end marketing material”.
“pitch book” is the unit of delivery for investment banking advice. Analogous to a “report” in equity research, or a “brief” in legal cases. It’s usually done in Powerpoint slides. Nothing very mysterious about it.
get a job as a janitor and clean the ibd. i’m sure you’d be able to find a few pitchbooks lying around.
I, too, have heard about these mysterious bitch books.
I doubt whether you will find anyone willing to post a “pitch book” on line. However, I can paint you a pretty good picture. Essentially, a pitch book from an investment bank is composed of one idea (whether good or bad is up to the client), enormously padded by (1) the investment bankers credentials in respect of the idea and (2) seemingly relevant but trivial data that “support” the idea. Example. You are a VP at an investment bank. It is about 6PM in the evening at the office and you are stressed to the max working on stuff. At 6:01PM, a Partner calls and says that there he is meeting for breakfast with the CFO of a major manufacturing firm and would like to present something interesting. You need to be there, too. Oh, the meeting is in Los Angeles, and you are in New York. . . . Here is how the pitch book then takes shape: 1. You look up the company (if publicly traded) on an S&P tear sheet. You examine its balance sheet, you look at its web site, you do a quick news search on the industry. It is now 6:20PM. Your plane leaves at 9:30PM 2. You have no really good ideas. 3. You default to the classic IB default pitch: “convertible debt.” The reason that the convertible debt pitch is the default choice of all seasoned bankers is that (a) its a little complex, so you can look smarter than guys just talking about debt or equity, (b) it allows you to posit that the company’s stock is undervalued (CFOs always believe this), and so talking about a “premium” conversion price to current equity is welcome and safe and © it allows the conversation to lead into areas such as the price of equity (CFOs love to talk about this) and current interest rates (at which IBs are supposed to be experts and have snake-charming economists on staff to create think pieces for). 4. It is now 6:30PM. Piece of cake. 5. You call up an Associiate (who will in turn call up an fresh out of college Analyst (not the “research analyst” variety) and tell him/her you need (1) Thomson Financial or Factset runs of all convertible bond deals done in the manufacturer’s industry over the past two years (spreads, conversion premium to equity price, etc.); (2) balance sheet comparison of the company with plain debt, equity, and convertible debt at the same issuance level; (3) income statement impact of the three alternatives, especially as regards comparative earnings per share; deal list of your firm’s convert offerings over the past two years - helps if you’ve done one or two in the client’s industry so that you can (supposedly) “talk shop” (CFOs love it when they think they are talking with people who “really understand” their industry); (4) major buyers of the last series of convert deals your firms has done and some comments about how well your firm knows them and call really sell new converts to them; (5) a page or two of “economic analysis” showing that, in effect, NOW is a great time to issue converts; and (6) and most important, where your firm stacks up versus the competition in respect of converts. Be sure to define the competitive universe in such a way that your firm comes out #1 – as in, $ value of converts sold to German hedge funds with offices in Houston (soemthing like that . . . .) Preparing all of this used to take a couple of days, but now takes – at most – an hour and a half. It is now 8:00PM. While the Associate has been putting the pitch together, you have arranged your flights and taxi waiting . . . 6. You look over the pages and put together a one page Executive Summary. That is your real value added. That is why you are paid the big bucks. It is now 8:15. You have the Associate print out 4 books and bind them and give them to you at the doorstep of the office as you jump into your cab for a tear out to JFK. 7. You an an IB, so the IB Gods always smile on you – you arrive at the airport at 9:15PM for your 9:30 flight, but it has been delayed by a half hour and you saunter on, books in hand. 8. You settle in to your flight to the West Coast. 9. Sometime during the flight you decide to look at the “pitch books” You discover that your Associate has misspelled the name of the company on a number of pages. You rip these out, cursing. You discover that some of the financial analyses have miscalculations. You rip these out, cursing. Fortunately, the material relating to your firm’s great position in convertible debt is done well and the economic analysis – cut and pasted from the economics dept – is without flaw. You decide the meeting should focus on the economic environment (you can read this stuff again before breakfast), the rationale for the convert (always a “good idea”, so don’t need any analysis anyway), and then show the pages with impressive firm market share bar charts in respect of the convertible market. 10. Ahhhhh, another great pitch!! 11. Remember to agree with whatever the client says. If he hates the convert idea, you simply say that it was a “conversation starter” in order to elicit better the client’s real views on the market and where he, by contrast, would find the most opportunity. Blah, blah. There is a deal in there somewhere!
Perfect, Auburn… I found the convertible debt portion, particularly about the CFO always thinking the stock is undervalued, to be particularly funny.
well put.
very very good. reading this kind of stuff makes me wanna be an ibanker.
FrankArabia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > very very good. reading this kind of stuff makes > me wanna be an ibanker. i hope that is sarcasm
Here is a free pitch deck template that could be helpful! http://www.corporatefinanceinstitute.com/how-to-build-a-pitch-deck-free-template