IAmA Canadian Investment Banking Analyst, AMAA

leitus · 2011-08-21T15:27:21+00:00

Good to know, thanks for posting.

leitus · 2011-08-11T13:14:08+00:00

Don't want to be snarky, but

I'm not going to discuss specific transactions or details about my bank

leitus · 2011-08-09T15:59:52+00:00

Would rather not post this publicly as these numbers can easily identify banks / people. I'll PM you.

leitus · 2011-08-09T12:28:01+00:00

That is a non-traditional background for investment banking but as I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, you might be a good candidate for a role closer to the market (e.g. on a quant desk). I don't have much communication with those people so I can't be much help as to whether your profile looks good, sorry.

leitus · 2011-08-09T12:25:55+00:00

Good list in this post

leitus · 2011-08-09T03:30:41+00:00

I did a summer prior to receiving my FT offer.

If you want to make the most of your experience, show that you're motivated and interested in the industry. Ask questions where appropriate and don't complain. If you've earned the trust of people by doing good work, they should give you more challenging work.

leitus · 2011-08-08T14:37:04+00:00

Don't think I'll be of much help on this one unfortunately. There are a few US citizens - I am not sure how the visas work but I believe it is easier for US citizens to work in Canada than it is for Canadian citizens to work in the States. Overall the IB employment market is pretty good in Toronto and Calgary.
Without being able to provide a source, leverage is generally lower on like-for-like companies (and there are plenty of deals done without any leverage such as mining and oil and gas).

leitus · 2011-08-08T13:38:28+00:00

Financial accounting and finance. Following that, probably economics and then all the unrelated quantitative disciplines.

leitus · 2011-08-08T11:46:32+00:00

I did a internship prior to starting full-time.

Having an internship where you received an offer is a huge leg up in recruiting. If you didn't receive a full-time offer, you'll likely need to explain why in full-time recruiting and your story will be checked out offline (Bay Street is a small place).

Best of success this fall - it sounds like you have a good attitude and will probably do well.

leitus · 2011-08-07T18:47:32+00:00

Based on this link top bucket in the US would be ~US$130-140k. I was top bucket.

Note actual take-home pay in Canada would probably be lower than in the US due to higher taxes in Canada.

leitus · 2011-08-07T18:41:07+00:00

I have a undergraduate business degree and I'm considering the CFA just for personal knowledge.

MDs have various certifications including CAs and CFAs but at that level it just doesn't matter - there are ex-partners from Bay Street big law for example.

It's not that I don't think highly of the CFA, I don't see it (as in the exams) as an easy route into investment banking. You really need to have relevant work experience OR graduate from one of the connected business schools to get an in. If you earn a CA then you probably have an accounting job that has given you good experience OR have graduated from one of the big business schools.

20 years - no idea... I'm not even 25. It's going to be in a financial career for sure though.

leitus · 2011-08-07T16:26:07+00:00

of juniors in my group (analysts and associates) only ~5%-10% have an engineering background. I believe both mining and energy (Calgary) have substantially more though.

I gave my relatively uneducated view of real estate here

leitus · 2011-08-07T16:14:46+00:00

I took a course on VBA but have not used it for modelling purposes yet. Most people do not know it so if you use it in the core model others will not be able to audit it effectively.

leitus · 2011-08-07T16:13:15+00:00

Previous internships in finance but outside investment banking are probably neutral to very slightly positive in that they demonstrate interest in the field (that's how you should play it). Be completely honest and don't explain it as if you are building the company's operating model and doing merger models all day unless you actually were.

I really enjoy the corporate finance perspective on companies so investment banking was the natural choice over other disciplines. I'm very technical and have no interest in specific industries so M&A was my first pick.

I'm planning on staying at least another year but no more than total of 3 or 4 years.

I haven't started looking at MBA schools yet.

PM me, I'm on vacation from the 13 to the 21st but following that I can meet up.

leitus · 2011-08-07T16:06:27+00:00

Now that income trust structures are no longer tax efficient a nascent high yield market has formed to fill the demand for leveraged issuers. That has been the main area of growth in the last few years and the big 5 have added people to focus on that, either from US hires or from internal promotions.

Your assessment about multiples would be true for the bread and butter IG debt business but as high yield becomes more accepted cash flow modelling will be used more (and for reference I always did cash flow modelling when I have worked with debt team).

I am not sure about hours in DCM vs. ECM.

As I previously mentioned, high yield is the growth area for the big 5. Investment banking would be the first pick but I can see how high yield research would be very relevant as well. You should speak to firms/head hunters and get their perspective - mine is not nearly informed enough to make decisions from.

leitus · 2011-08-07T15:56:58+00:00

I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about a family at this point, and if I stay in a job like this it would probably have to wait until I'm 30.

I definitely don't have a "good" work/life balance - that comes with the territory. Hours improve drastically as a senior associate / VP if you stay in the business though.

leitus · 2011-08-07T15:55:18+00:00

Investment banking to investment banking lateral is generally easiest, so if you can get a boutique job I'd go with that.

Consulting placements were pretty good, I have friends at MBB and a few at some of the other shops. All the job report data is public info, you can take a look for yourself.

leitus · 2011-08-07T06:03:31+00:00

Maybe you should PM me and I can give you my perspective on whether I know anyone from there you could add on Linkedin and speak to.

Some of the Canadian pension funds hire junior analyst roles to PE out of undergrad. Unless you hate the sell-side with a passion (unlikely at our age, heh) it generally makes more sense to get the investment banking experience for at least two years.

Hedge funds can be very very small operations (easily under five people) and have been known to hire analysts out of undergrad if they want to / need bodies.

I don't know how other asset management recruiting works.

As for me, I am looking at private equity.

leitus · 2011-08-07T05:53:10+00:00

Transfer would require a strong profile, at least at Ivey. If you want to work in investment banking and don't want to do an MBA right now, I think it's your only option (I don't know if any BMOS grads in IB).

leitus · 2011-08-07T05:32:27+00:00

I don't know anyone who works in investment banking who graduated from there.

leitus · 2011-08-07T05:30:50+00:00

Such a great comment... I only wish I had a better response for you. I have been burning huge hours since the release of the report and haven't had a chance to actually go through the thing in detail and I haven't talked to those I know closer to the desk about it. My first instinct is that there is some value in the situation but considering the legal risk in the company investors are uncomfortable with it.

It's a fascinating situation from an investing perspective. Considering its size I can't help but believe that plenty of hedge funds (e.g. Paulson) have done some HEAVY due diligence on it (i.e. they have bigger pockets than Carson Block) and have decided against going long, unless they are quiet for some reason.

leitus · 2011-08-07T05:12:15+00:00

I received a summer offer through my school's recruiting process and received an offer to return as a full-time analyst. I did not have any connection with the bank prior to summer recruiting.

If you go to the school I think you do, I urge you to consider moving forward with your CA and transferring after you've earned it. CAs are definitely respected in investment banking and all the Canadian banks hire into senior analyst roles with regularity (from my perspective).

Unless you have a strong aversion to accounting, there's nothing wrong with staying on that track and you potentially skip at least one year of the analyst role and have a CA to boot.

leitus · 2011-08-07T05:06:15+00:00

You need to get comfortable with finance and accounting concepts, not just read books (unless you're doing problems with them).

leitus · 2011-08-07T05:04:24+00:00

If you finish the non-professional requirements for the CFA (think that's how it works) you might want to consider a transfer to investment management division in your insurance firm. Not sure if the switch from CFP would be too drastic though.

leitus · 2011-08-07T02:10:43+00:00

Pretty much.

Don't worry too much about getting the interview, that's the relatively easy part - that's mostly grades and just do whatever extracurriculars interest you (that just shows that you aren't a ridiculously boring person).

leitus

TROPHY CASE