Whenever there’s a recession, downturn, or market crash, everyone in finance gets the same idea: Break into Restructuring or distressed investing! I wouldn’t be shocked if search traffic for terms like “restructuring investment banking” doubles or triples in these times. It’s not entirely irrational: Restructuring and distressed groups are the best places to be in […]

Ask anyone about the “best” group in investment banking, and one name will come up repeatedly: Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A). It’s so mythical that we even used a slight variation for the name of this website. People often argue that M&A investment banking offers “the most intellectually challenging tasks” and “the best exit opportunities.” These […]

Private placement agent jobs: “investment banking lite,” or a solid career opportunity? There’s a lot of debate over this question, but even discussing it is difficult because “private placement groups” vary so much. For example, are you in a large bank’s private placement group? Or at an independent firm? Do you focus on private placements […]

When you hear the words “corporate banking,” you might immediately think of loans. Or, you might be confused about what “corporate banking” means and how it’s different from commercial banking and investment banking. In either case, your thinking would be justified. The corporate banking division at a bank does advise on loan issuances, but the […]

The Leveraged Finance or “LevFin” group is not a big deal; they just happen to close big deals. And as a result, the Internet seems to be in love with this team. It’s not just because of those big deals, though; there’s also the perception that Leveraged Finance is one of the best groups for […]

If someone tells you, “I work in Debt Capital Markets (DCM)”, you might immediately think: Bond. Investment-grade bond. Or, you might not think of anything at all, since there’s much less information about the debt markets than there is about the equity markets. Everyone can recall famous IPOs of technology companies, but hardly anyone outside […]

If you hear the words “Equity Capital Markets (ECM)”, you might immediately think of initial public offerings (IPOs) and companies raising billions of dollars in huge stock-market debuts. But there’s a lot more to the group than breaking records and making headlines in the process. Like other capital markets teams at banks, ECM groups can […]

Last time around, there was some controversy over whether or not Structured Finance was evil. “Evil,” of course, meaning that it caused the financial crisis. This time around, our interviewee addresses that question and responds to even more of my passive-aggressive interviewing techniques – plus a whole lot more. Here’s what you’ll learn in part […]

I’ve gotten requests to cover dozens of different topics – some of which are easy to find information on, and others that require Jack Bauer-style interrogation techniques to find clues. In the latter category is Structured Finance – look around online and you’ll find dozens of different definitions and contradictory descriptions of what it is […]

“Yo, M&A is the best, right?” “Why would you ever take an industry group over M&A or Leveraged Finance? Don’t you want to buy entire countries when you move into PE?” “If you’re not modeling you’ll get bottom-tier bonus!” Ah, yes: the industry group vs. product group debate. Just like the debate over cardio vs. […]

We continue our discussion of different groups in investment banking today by learning all about a group you might not have even heard of before: the equity syndicate. While it’s more niche than some of the others we’ve looked at (M&A, ECM…), that also makes it interesting and worth discussing. To make things even more […]