A Week In The Life Of An Investment Banking Analyst: Saturday
Back when I posted my representative Week In The Life Of An Investment Banking Analyst, I skipped Saturday and figured no one would notice (or just assume that we don’t work on Saturdays).
However, I’ve received an unprecedented number of comments and emails inquiring about “what happened to Saturday”, so I went back to my journal to figure out what Saturday in this week looked like.
I could be cruel and write about that one Saturday when I was summoned away from dinner and had to pull an all-nighter into Sunday, but that’s not representative of a typical weekend (plus, that’s a story for another time).
So here’s Saturday of that same week:
12 PM – Wake up “late.” If you recall from my Friday account, I went to sleep around 5 AM. Those of you still in school might be used to waking up at 3 PM on Saturday, but I recommend getting up by noon once you’re a banker.
1 PM – Head to the gym. Check Blackberry intermittently in between sets, but so far no major surprises.
In case you’re wondering, people at the gym do look at you strangely when you check your Blackberry every 5 minutes.
2 PM – Get back. A few friends are in town for the weekend and one of them wants me to quit investment banking and buy a laundromat with him (apparently they are profitable cash-cows). I have a diverse group of friends.
It’s tempting, but I’m not crazy enough to invest the amount of cash required, so I decline for the time being. Plus, I need to continue living the dream for at least 2 years.
3 PM – Here it is: The Email arrives. I have to run back to the office to take care of a Board Presentation needed on Monday for a prospective client.
The Board Presentation is a nebulous concept; it refers to any presentation given to a company’s Board of Directors, but the size, scope and format vary widely depending on what you’re presenting. It can be a 100 slide presentation that requires strings of all-nighters, or it can be a quick update of previous materials.
Luckily, in this case all I have to do is refresh a valuation that we showed the company previously and add a few slides of text, so it shouldn’t take long.
You might be wondering why I have to do this on Saturday if it’s only needed for Monday. As I mentioned previously, everything in investment banking requires at least 10 revisions and everyone from Associate to MD will have to look at this first and offer feedback before it’s done.
So things often take longer than expected.
7 PM – Finished. I distribute to my team, knowing that no one is likely to look at it on a Saturday night. I’m a free man (temporarily).
7:30 PM – Meet up with friends for dinner. I am still being pitched on this laundromat idea. Maybe if I had just pulled an all-nighter it would sound more attractive.
9 PM – Exchanging text messages with friends planning out where we’re going tonight. In the immortal words of Leveraged Sellout, “There is no consensus, but one thing is agreed: it is going to be epic.”
10 PM – Still no consensus has emerged, so we split up and head to separate clubs.
11 PM – See another few friends from different banks in the city. I mentioned how you can’t get away from work, no matter how much you try, right? Having a Blackberry on you at all times doesn’t help, either.
2 AM – Things are winding down, so it’s time to go elsewhere. If this were a Thursday night, 2 AM would mean time to sleep, but this is Saturday.
Models and Bottles Watch: Luckily it’s a Saturday night (even on a tropical island in the summer, a Monday night out results in few members of the opposite sex), so the model count is high. Bonuses are not out yet and I’m still a starving 1st Year Analyst at this point so the bottle count is lower than expected.
3 AM – Head to stereotypical hookah bar. I don’t know why bankers love these so much, but they do. Personally I don’t smoke at all (it would ruin my diet) but I follow my friends there and hang out for awhile.
4 AM – Sleep.
Key Observations
You might be surprised that there were “only” a few hours of work on this particular Saturday. When you get busy on weekends, it’s usually because of pitches and aggressively marketing to prospective clients.
As you might recall, most of my work this week was related to existing clients – a.k.a. “deals” – so there wasn’t much to do on the weekend. This isn’t always true – often if a deal is just starting or about to finish up, there will be a mad rush to finish things over the weekend – but I’ve found it to be a good rule of thumb.
Like this article? Subscribe via RSS and start understanding investment banking.Get Into Investment Banking via Email:
Follow M&I on Twitter
Tags: investment banker lifestyle, investment banking, investment banking analyst, M&A deals, understanding investment banking
Other readers who liked this article also liked these:
I love hookah, there are some really nice hookah lounges in NYC to have a good time.
It’s light and relaxing with some really tasty flavors depending on the lounge’s flavor selection.
I agree though, it really does hurt endurance dramatically. I noticed a marked improvement in stamina whenever I stopped for a month or two when playing basketball.
It’s definitely good to enjoy once and awhile, there are some real nice exotic flavors you can find online or at shops that carry hookah tobacco since most lounges tend to only carry the most popular flavors.
Starbuzz and Fumari tobacco are the two elite brands in hookah tobacco in my opinion, the priciest as well but deliver the most flavor.
Thanks for the tips – I’ve gone occasionally before and it has been fun, but yeah I’m kind of a hardcore health nut now so I try to stay away…
I couldn’t give two craps about clubs and bars, but fishing is key for r&r and drinking a six pack on the tailgate of my truck (I’m a redneck, whatever I know it, I bet my “target school” gpa was higher though ha). Anyway, is that even a possibility if you need to be at the office in 20 minutes and your an hour away on your Saturday or Sunday?
I stopped caring in my 2nd year so I did that kind of thing all the time, you probably want to be more conservative at first though.
Thanks for the response, that makes sense in terms of fitting in with culture. Sorry if this is the wrong spot for this question, but would you say your articles about PE would transpose to venture capital? I know more startup experience is better for smaller firms, but bigger funds (I guess 500MM+) would you kind of try to follow the same path as an analyst trying to break into PE? Thanks.
A lot of it still applies, but PE cares less about deal experience/modeling and is even more fit-focused. Generally the later stage VC it is, the more it starts to resemble PE instead. Anything growth-equity/late-stage focused would be similar to PE.