Private vs. Public M&A Deals: Got Divested Assets and a Stepped-Up Tax Basis?

When you start working in investment banking, you need to make a difficult decision that almost everyone overlooks…

No, not what types of toys you should buy with your signing bonus.

I’m talking about the types of companies you work with – not just the industries they’re in, or whether you work in an industry group or a product group, but something else entirely: whether your clients are public or private.

You might get a completely different experience and skill set depending on the type of company you focus on, and you might set yourself up for very different exit opportunities… or it might not make much of a difference.

But it’s usually not a “decision” at all.

The one you focus on depends mostly on your bank, group, and industry, and it’s something you get thrown into without much input – with consequences.

What’s the Difference?

Corporate Banking 101: Create Twice the Value and Work Half the Hours?

Do you want to create more value? How about work less?

You probably don’t associate either one of those with investment banking, and for good reason: banking analysts spend way too many hours on a single model and run through over 77 revisions of a presentation… and that all-important meeting often gets postponed or canceled anyway.

But there is one group where you’ll get a more streamlined experience doing real, value-added work the whole time: corporate banking.

Our interviewee today comes from a corporate banking department that’s separate from the investment banking division you already know, and he’s going to give you a corporate banking crash course.

Today’s interview includes additional technical comments by Angela Choi, who spent some time covering the credit product side of finance and the economics research side of government policy.

While corporate banking may not inspire you to become the next Blake from Mitch and Murray, it also gets you better hours, less stress, and solid exit opportunities.

Here’s what you’ll get in this crash course:

• How our interviewee got into the cash flow game of corporate banking
• What you’ll do and why you want to do it
• How the products you sell in corporate banking actually work
• Transferable skills compared to the traditional investment banking skill set
• Exit plans once you’re done giving away other people’s money

Let’s get started on “converting” this interview into a full-time offer at your next corporate banking interview:

From College to Cash Flow

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) Process: Got Facebook Shares?

A long time ago, initial public offerings were the end game for many technology start-ups: you could go public, get acquired, or die a spectacular death.

Or just muddle along and die a slower, more painful death.

And then one company came along and changed all that.

While everyone has been obsessing over Facebook’s IPO today, the great irony is that Facebook itself has made IPOs less relevant than ever before.

Here’s how the IPO process normally works when you’re at a bank, and what Facebook did to upend most of that – and make thousands of people very wealthy in the process: