I know its been a while and that I should have posted a couple more things on the blog. Sorry I didn't keep you posted, so let me back into the last week.
I left the last post on edge because I wasn't staffed and it was my last week. I really wanted to kill it and leave no regrets but I was stuck not having much to do.
Well I ended up getting staffed to my surprise. The staffer went on vacation and the substitute sent out a message saying to send him our activity levels. So I sent an email saying, "I know that if new things come up that you will ultimately want to staff the new analysts, but if you have anything I can do, please staff me."
He called me and said, "We have project for you that will take a couple of days, could you do it?" So I ended up getting staffed anyway and it was great. It was great because it kept my mind off of dwelling on the offer and wondering what will happen. So I cranked on having a couple pages in a book ready for today and looking back I realize how far I have come because the pages were pretty complex and yet I was able to whip them out in no time. It felt good. And just like The Analyst, I feel like I am really starting to get it.
Thursday morning I had my final review at 8:30. I got into the office around 8:00 and at 8:15 I got called in to have my review. There were two interns before me, each with 15 minutes blocked out. So in my mind I am thinking, "If they finished 2 in 15 minutes they both probably have offers." Sure enough, they did.
I entered the room and sat down across from the VP who I actually was working with on this last staffing of mine. On the phone was the recruiter.
Recruiter: "Well Warpang as you know, I am sure this summer has been very challenging and rewarding at the same time. How did you feel it went for you."
Me: "I thought it went really well. You know we had those things to work on and I did my best to improve..."
Recruiter: "Yeah definitely. And it was clear from your review that you did make improvements in your second half of the internship. We are proud that you worked hard and well, I will let VP deliver the news..."
VP: "We were very impressed with you work and many have mentioned how enjoyable it is to work with you. We would like to extend and offer to come back next summer to join the analyst class of 2009."
Me: "Wow, awesome, thank you."
They handed me a letter and said I would be receiving stuff in the mail.
VP: "This is not an exploding offer. We are looking to have decisions made by the end of October but want you to take as much time as needed to make the right decision. Also, not everyone in your class today will receive an offer so please keep that in mind as you talk with people today."
Me: "Well thanks again, and I would like to say, I really enjoyed the summer and loved the people I worked with, so thank you."
That was it. I got on the phone and called my best friend and my mom and sister. I definitely was excited, don't get me wrong, but they were really excited.
I got a lot of congratualtions, but I think what was sad is that the intern who shared an office with me was the only one who didn't get an offer. However, he didn't seem to bothered by it.
No rest for the weary though. I was cranking away all day long yesterday. In fact I was at the office until 2:00 a.m. last night. But what better way to go than by working really hard? All of the other interns were done and goofing off. As much as I would have like to join, it was nice to think that even though I got the offer, I was still interested in performing well.
One of the true signs that made me feel like I actually made a difference was when the analyst I was working with said, "Dude I am so screwed this weekend." I was like, "Why?" "Because you're leaving." He mentioned it a couple times. Though I felt a little bad for him, I smiled inside.
I don't know what else to post. I leave the rest of my blog to you and any questions, anytime, please feel free to contact me. Hopefully the blog has been helpful and I will try to stay up on it when I accept my offer and the thoughts that were in my head at that time.
Thanks for following the blog for those who did. I wish you luck in these markets, but I have learned anything is possible.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Interesting News
This week has been interesting as things start to dwindle down to just a couple of days left in the internship.
Yesterday the new full-time analysts arrived from NY. There are 10 all together. One of the new analysts is from my school and its nice to catch up with him. Interesting how the tables have turned and we are all in it together. You see, it was last summer when I was coming to him asking for help and getting up to speed on banking. Now he is the one asking the questions about the office and how things have worked.
I found it humorous that 3 times yesterday I engaged in a conversation with 3 new analysts and somehow in the conversation they said, "Oh I thought you were an associate." Well, not quite, but I do have to say there is a sense of confidence when you are not the new kid on the block.
As time winds down I once again come to a point similar to where I was in the beginning of the internship. That is, not staffed, but wanting to be busy. You have to kind of balance not bugging people and yet being proactive. But it dawned on me in a conversation yesterday--this is pretty much it. I am not getting staffed again and I have a week left. The reason being is because any new projects and the staffer will put one of the 10 new analysts on it. In addition to that, the staffer is going on vacation next week. Basically it boils down to me just doing well on the projects I am currently on when I am needed.
For one project, all the bankers are in NY going through due diligence. On the other project, everyone (including the senior bankers here) are on vacation. So from time to time, I do little things like fax stuff to hotels in NY for those in due diligence. To be honest, yesterday I "worked" for probably a grand total of 3 hours. I ended up leaving the office at 10:30 p.m. which was one of the earliest time I have ever left.
This morning I submitted the names of bankers I want to review me. A couple days ago I made a list of all the people I had worked with. The list contained about 13 names, but I then narrowed the list down to those who I worked will significantly. Out of the ones I worked with significantly I narrowed it down to the ones I know will go to bat for me. They asked us to submit 4-6 names total. So I made my final choices of 5 names. I then individually approached each one. Generally this is how our conversation went:
"Hey I just wanted to catch up with you. They have asked us to submit 4-6 names of bankers we worked with. I wanted to touch base with you and see if you feel like you have enough information from our interactions to write a review for me."
Now obviously they know I am really asking them to write a GOOD review, but I think the words "enough information from interactions to write..." was a soft approach to asking "Will you go to bat for me." Every single one said, "Dude, I will write you a good review. You don't have to worry."
There were some bankers I did approach that I felt I had a good interaction with but really didn't know what kind of a review they would write me. For example I approached an analyst and their response was, "Yeah, we didn't work too much together you know. I can write you a good review, but it will be general." Well, to say the least, I scratched them off the list. I can't afford a luke warm review.
Despite the fact that I have worked my hardest, done my best work, and have confirmation of people going to bat for me, I still worry about the final verdict. Yesterday the summer associates had their final reviews. Only 2 out of 4 got offers here in CA, and in the NY group 0 out of 4 got offers! I couldn't believe it because I felt like the summer AS did really well.
So the question comes, how do I stack up against the other interns? There are 6 and I feel I am at least in the top 3. But as you can see, not even being the top intern in some cases will get you an offer. So as you can imagine, times are tough, and not being busy doesn't help. With names already submitted I ask myself if there is anything at this point that I can proactively do. In all honesty the best thing would be first to make sure I don't additionally ding myself.
I can say this. I do love banking, and if I don't get an offer, as discouraging as that may be, I would still apply for full time jobs at other banks. I know times are tough and even those with offers are struggling to shop around. I don't feel like I can afford to shop around. I may end up accepting on the spot, if in fact I do get an offer. Especially if there is an exploding bonus which is where they give you a bonus if you accept within a certain time frame.
Yesterday the new full-time analysts arrived from NY. There are 10 all together. One of the new analysts is from my school and its nice to catch up with him. Interesting how the tables have turned and we are all in it together. You see, it was last summer when I was coming to him asking for help and getting up to speed on banking. Now he is the one asking the questions about the office and how things have worked.
I found it humorous that 3 times yesterday I engaged in a conversation with 3 new analysts and somehow in the conversation they said, "Oh I thought you were an associate." Well, not quite, but I do have to say there is a sense of confidence when you are not the new kid on the block.
As time winds down I once again come to a point similar to where I was in the beginning of the internship. That is, not staffed, but wanting to be busy. You have to kind of balance not bugging people and yet being proactive. But it dawned on me in a conversation yesterday--this is pretty much it. I am not getting staffed again and I have a week left. The reason being is because any new projects and the staffer will put one of the 10 new analysts on it. In addition to that, the staffer is going on vacation next week. Basically it boils down to me just doing well on the projects I am currently on when I am needed.
For one project, all the bankers are in NY going through due diligence. On the other project, everyone (including the senior bankers here) are on vacation. So from time to time, I do little things like fax stuff to hotels in NY for those in due diligence. To be honest, yesterday I "worked" for probably a grand total of 3 hours. I ended up leaving the office at 10:30 p.m. which was one of the earliest time I have ever left.
This morning I submitted the names of bankers I want to review me. A couple days ago I made a list of all the people I had worked with. The list contained about 13 names, but I then narrowed the list down to those who I worked will significantly. Out of the ones I worked with significantly I narrowed it down to the ones I know will go to bat for me. They asked us to submit 4-6 names total. So I made my final choices of 5 names. I then individually approached each one. Generally this is how our conversation went:
"Hey I just wanted to catch up with you. They have asked us to submit 4-6 names of bankers we worked with. I wanted to touch base with you and see if you feel like you have enough information from our interactions to write a review for me."
Now obviously they know I am really asking them to write a GOOD review, but I think the words "enough information from interactions to write..." was a soft approach to asking "Will you go to bat for me." Every single one said, "Dude, I will write you a good review. You don't have to worry."
There were some bankers I did approach that I felt I had a good interaction with but really didn't know what kind of a review they would write me. For example I approached an analyst and their response was, "Yeah, we didn't work too much together you know. I can write you a good review, but it will be general." Well, to say the least, I scratched them off the list. I can't afford a luke warm review.
Despite the fact that I have worked my hardest, done my best work, and have confirmation of people going to bat for me, I still worry about the final verdict. Yesterday the summer associates had their final reviews. Only 2 out of 4 got offers here in CA, and in the NY group 0 out of 4 got offers! I couldn't believe it because I felt like the summer AS did really well.
So the question comes, how do I stack up against the other interns? There are 6 and I feel I am at least in the top 3. But as you can see, not even being the top intern in some cases will get you an offer. So as you can imagine, times are tough, and not being busy doesn't help. With names already submitted I ask myself if there is anything at this point that I can proactively do. In all honesty the best thing would be first to make sure I don't additionally ding myself.
I can say this. I do love banking, and if I don't get an offer, as discouraging as that may be, I would still apply for full time jobs at other banks. I know times are tough and even those with offers are struggling to shop around. I don't feel like I can afford to shop around. I may end up accepting on the spot, if in fact I do get an offer. Especially if there is an exploding bonus which is where they give you a bonus if you accept within a certain time frame.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Busy Week
Wow. I feel really bad for not keeping up with my blog so close to finishing my internship. This week was busy and the hours were as expected.
I got staffed on a couple more live deals. I am starting to wonder if I even know what live deal means. The reason I question myself is because I hear of interns going their whole summer without seeing a live deal and I feel like my whole summer has been live deals.
So I went to the banks intraweb to see if I was really on live deals and sure enough, I am currently staffed on 4 live deals. I think the cool part is that they are all at different stages. My responsibilities have been pretty secretarial. For example, I had outline a due diligence list. So when a company engages in a transaction, lets say they have a couple of interested buyer, the management makes presentations to the interested buyer and then the buyers will seek after more information. What we do then is set up a data room where we can store all kind of documents related to the company that the potential buyer want to see. The detail of these data rooms is amazing. They range from court documents to financial statements to brochures to minutes from meetings written on a napkins-- scanned in and placed in the data room.
So the due diligence list is a 20 page document requesting all this stuff, and of course you want to be detailed because if you don't ask for it, the potential buyer will.
Luckily, I don't have to reinvent the wheel. Plenty of these DD lists have gone out before and they are pretty standard. I just had to cut and paste pieces that were missing from one list to the other. It was a little tedious and ambiguous, but interesting to read the things requested.
I have one really good story to tell, where I feel like I nailed it, and another story to tell where I feel like I blew it big time.
I got staffed to a deal where we are possibly going to restructure some debt for a client. So right when I got staffed I hopped on bloomberg and looked up some things to try to get my head around their current position. The next day I was in a conference call with a VP and a couple MDs. I don't know why the analyst on the project was not on, but I was doing my normal thing just laying low and listening.
Then one of the MDs asks, "Do we know the credit rating on this company?" Nobody really knew and a couple were guessing, but I knew! I had emailed a copy of their credit rating to myself from Bloomberg. But rather than taking myself off mute and blabbing what could potentially be the wrong answer, I just sent the document to the VP with a message, "Is this what you are looking for?" Sure enough 10 seconds later I hear over the phone, "Yeah I got it right here. Looks like they are rated a BB-" BOOYA! He sent me an email saying thanks.
But with every good action there is an opposite reaction. Sunday I was asked to have some documents delivered to an MDs house. As I was obtaining the address, I noticed he lived very close to the office, so rather than having a courier take it I could just drop it off on my way to church.
I located his address on a document that was given to me when I first arrived that contained the home addresses of all the bankers. When I got to his house, no one was home and so I emailed an analyst asking whether I should leave it or come back. He said to leave it, but I was concerned (because it contains highly confidential information) that it might get stolen. So I slid the documents through a mailbox that dropped into his home. I then sent him an email describing where I put it, and then I took off to church.
During church I get this email, "I can't seem to find the documents. Where did you put it? Address?" I responded, "I delivered to 100 Warpang street, is that not the right address?" I didn't get a response and due to the fact that I was sweating bullets I decided to call the MD.
"Hi [So and so] I delivered them to this address in the mail drop connected to the garage."
"No, no that is where I used to live, I live one street over now. You have to make sure you get the right address next time, and Warpang-- you better get those documents back."
Frantically I drove to the house, hoping and praying that someone would be there and that they had not opened anything. I thank my lucky stars that someone was there this time and I told the gentleman what had happened. He started looking through his mail and I said, "I think it is still in your garage, I just dropped it off today." He went in his garage and got the envelope and thank goodness it was still in its original condition.
I delivered it to the MD, and as you can imagine, I delivered it to him like a scared little puppy. I apologized for not getting the right address. He just looked at me and said thanks, and closed the door.
So, okay. Some ups and downs. I don't excuse myself, put my level of attention to detail has reached level 5 paranoia. I mean, now I feel like I have to check addresses.
I went back to the office, sure enough the date on the document was June 6 and the address was incorrect. I don't know and I didn't ask whether he had moved in that time, but you can best bet that any documents coming my way will be checked three times before I believe whatever's on it. Hopefully he doesn't spread the foul up, but you never know.
I got staffed on a couple more live deals. I am starting to wonder if I even know what live deal means. The reason I question myself is because I hear of interns going their whole summer without seeing a live deal and I feel like my whole summer has been live deals.
So I went to the banks intraweb to see if I was really on live deals and sure enough, I am currently staffed on 4 live deals. I think the cool part is that they are all at different stages. My responsibilities have been pretty secretarial. For example, I had outline a due diligence list. So when a company engages in a transaction, lets say they have a couple of interested buyer, the management makes presentations to the interested buyer and then the buyers will seek after more information. What we do then is set up a data room where we can store all kind of documents related to the company that the potential buyer want to see. The detail of these data rooms is amazing. They range from court documents to financial statements to brochures to minutes from meetings written on a napkins-- scanned in and placed in the data room.
So the due diligence list is a 20 page document requesting all this stuff, and of course you want to be detailed because if you don't ask for it, the potential buyer will.
Luckily, I don't have to reinvent the wheel. Plenty of these DD lists have gone out before and they are pretty standard. I just had to cut and paste pieces that were missing from one list to the other. It was a little tedious and ambiguous, but interesting to read the things requested.
I have one really good story to tell, where I feel like I nailed it, and another story to tell where I feel like I blew it big time.
I got staffed to a deal where we are possibly going to restructure some debt for a client. So right when I got staffed I hopped on bloomberg and looked up some things to try to get my head around their current position. The next day I was in a conference call with a VP and a couple MDs. I don't know why the analyst on the project was not on, but I was doing my normal thing just laying low and listening.
Then one of the MDs asks, "Do we know the credit rating on this company?" Nobody really knew and a couple were guessing, but I knew! I had emailed a copy of their credit rating to myself from Bloomberg. But rather than taking myself off mute and blabbing what could potentially be the wrong answer, I just sent the document to the VP with a message, "Is this what you are looking for?" Sure enough 10 seconds later I hear over the phone, "Yeah I got it right here. Looks like they are rated a BB-" BOOYA! He sent me an email saying thanks.
But with every good action there is an opposite reaction. Sunday I was asked to have some documents delivered to an MDs house. As I was obtaining the address, I noticed he lived very close to the office, so rather than having a courier take it I could just drop it off on my way to church.
I located his address on a document that was given to me when I first arrived that contained the home addresses of all the bankers. When I got to his house, no one was home and so I emailed an analyst asking whether I should leave it or come back. He said to leave it, but I was concerned (because it contains highly confidential information) that it might get stolen. So I slid the documents through a mailbox that dropped into his home. I then sent him an email describing where I put it, and then I took off to church.
During church I get this email, "I can't seem to find the documents. Where did you put it? Address?" I responded, "I delivered to 100 Warpang street, is that not the right address?" I didn't get a response and due to the fact that I was sweating bullets I decided to call the MD.
"Hi [So and so] I delivered them to this address in the mail drop connected to the garage."
"No, no that is where I used to live, I live one street over now. You have to make sure you get the right address next time, and Warpang-- you better get those documents back."
Frantically I drove to the house, hoping and praying that someone would be there and that they had not opened anything. I thank my lucky stars that someone was there this time and I told the gentleman what had happened. He started looking through his mail and I said, "I think it is still in your garage, I just dropped it off today." He went in his garage and got the envelope and thank goodness it was still in its original condition.
I delivered it to the MD, and as you can imagine, I delivered it to him like a scared little puppy. I apologized for not getting the right address. He just looked at me and said thanks, and closed the door.
So, okay. Some ups and downs. I don't excuse myself, put my level of attention to detail has reached level 5 paranoia. I mean, now I feel like I have to check addresses.
I went back to the office, sure enough the date on the document was June 6 and the address was incorrect. I don't know and I didn't ask whether he had moved in that time, but you can best bet that any documents coming my way will be checked three times before I believe whatever's on it. Hopefully he doesn't spread the foul up, but you never know.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Time To Kill It
Saturday: 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Sunday: Didn’t have to work! Yay!
Monday: 8:00 a.m. – 1:30 a.m.
The weekend was very chill. I came in on Saturday to spread a couple of comps, but that was about it.
When I came in to spread comps I went to see the staffer as well. Here is what went down:
Me: “Hey [staffer] do you have a few minutes?”
Staffer: “Sure, Warpang, what’s up?”
Me: “I just wanted to catch up with you and give you an idea of my activity levels. I have a couple things early next week to work on for Real Deal, but besides that, most of my projects are moving kind of slow. I just wanted to let you know that I have 3 weeks left and I want to kill it. I would love to work with bankers I don’t know in the other groups…”
Staffer: “Great, yeah. I am thinking some things will be coming up later next week, I will be sure to keep you in mind. Thanks for letting me know.”
We talked a little longer, but overall I felt like I left him with the impression I wanted him to have: that I am here to work, and that without sacrificing quality, I want to be fully staffed. Hopefully things go well. No regrets.
Sunday, I didn’t come into the office, but spent some personal time thinking, and building up strength to really perform well for the next few weeks. I feel like for the most part I have had a successful internship. I know that success is determined by the offer, but I know this for myself, I have done everything I can to position myself in such a way that if I don’t get an offer, I can go home holding my head high because I did the best I could.
Monday— We had management meetings with Real Deal. From 9-1 a competing management team to who we are advising came to here our client pitch their business. The idea would be that if things went according to plan, a merger would be in order. I wasn’t apart of that meeting because of space, between the bankers and two management teams, the room was packed. In the middle of the first meeting I was walking past the restroom when one of the MDs stepped out of the meeting. He looked at me and rolled his eyes and said, “Dude you are lucky to sitting out this round.”
“Is it boring?”
“You have no idea.” I just laughed and said I would see him soon. Well he was right. The next meeting from 2-5 was with a private equity firm looking to buy our client. For me I learned really what banking was about. Here we are in the meeting, and I think, “we are just match makers. Hi-end real estate agents, matching buyer to seller.” I looked around the room. The bankers were just as bored as I was. Except for the MD, not one banker said a word. The majority of the meeting was spent discussion IP, operations, long term goals. Only about 10% was on the actual numbers of what it would take to do the deal. It seemed as though (and maybe this really does apply to all) that the potential buyer was not so concerned about the price, but just like ordinary people, they wanted to make sure they were purchasing something they wanted, that fit, and worked for their business. I guess my impression of a management presentation was the team with bankers crunching and selling the numbers, but it wasn’t.
I did some other tasks throughout the day. I don’t know if I have mentioned this in the past, but one of the surprising things about my internship is the lack of modeling I have done. I thought we would be doing a lot more. Finally, though, I got to work a little with a model, just one piece (which is better than no piece). I had to spread the P&L (profit and loss) from the management presentation. However, the numbers they presented didn’t quite ad up because of rounding. So for me I had to tweak numbers here and their and shape the model to fit the managements projections. What was nice an relieving was the fact that had the analyst not been on vacation, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I would have just sat behind him. So it was nice to have to AS trust me enough to do.
The last thing I did was spread a transaction cost. I zeroed in and spread that sucker in 15 minutes. When I was done I was like, “Is that it? Wait that can’t be it, that was way to quick.” An analyst checked my work and said, “It’s right. Looks good.” I couldn’t believe myself and how far I have come since I first started here. I remember when it would take hours to spread one comp. Now it takes just a few minutes.
Well this is it. It is coming down to the wire. I can’t emphasize enough about how bad I just want to tear it up. Go out guns blazing. My goal is to kill it for the nest few weeks, work tired long hours and return to school happy and with an offer hopefully.
Sunday: Didn’t have to work! Yay!
Monday: 8:00 a.m. – 1:30 a.m.
The weekend was very chill. I came in on Saturday to spread a couple of comps, but that was about it.
When I came in to spread comps I went to see the staffer as well. Here is what went down:
Me: “Hey [staffer] do you have a few minutes?”
Staffer: “Sure, Warpang, what’s up?”
Me: “I just wanted to catch up with you and give you an idea of my activity levels. I have a couple things early next week to work on for Real Deal, but besides that, most of my projects are moving kind of slow. I just wanted to let you know that I have 3 weeks left and I want to kill it. I would love to work with bankers I don’t know in the other groups…”
Staffer: “Great, yeah. I am thinking some things will be coming up later next week, I will be sure to keep you in mind. Thanks for letting me know.”
We talked a little longer, but overall I felt like I left him with the impression I wanted him to have: that I am here to work, and that without sacrificing quality, I want to be fully staffed. Hopefully things go well. No regrets.
Sunday, I didn’t come into the office, but spent some personal time thinking, and building up strength to really perform well for the next few weeks. I feel like for the most part I have had a successful internship. I know that success is determined by the offer, but I know this for myself, I have done everything I can to position myself in such a way that if I don’t get an offer, I can go home holding my head high because I did the best I could.
Monday— We had management meetings with Real Deal. From 9-1 a competing management team to who we are advising came to here our client pitch their business. The idea would be that if things went according to plan, a merger would be in order. I wasn’t apart of that meeting because of space, between the bankers and two management teams, the room was packed. In the middle of the first meeting I was walking past the restroom when one of the MDs stepped out of the meeting. He looked at me and rolled his eyes and said, “Dude you are lucky to sitting out this round.”
“Is it boring?”
“You have no idea.” I just laughed and said I would see him soon. Well he was right. The next meeting from 2-5 was with a private equity firm looking to buy our client. For me I learned really what banking was about. Here we are in the meeting, and I think, “we are just match makers. Hi-end real estate agents, matching buyer to seller.” I looked around the room. The bankers were just as bored as I was. Except for the MD, not one banker said a word. The majority of the meeting was spent discussion IP, operations, long term goals. Only about 10% was on the actual numbers of what it would take to do the deal. It seemed as though (and maybe this really does apply to all) that the potential buyer was not so concerned about the price, but just like ordinary people, they wanted to make sure they were purchasing something they wanted, that fit, and worked for their business. I guess my impression of a management presentation was the team with bankers crunching and selling the numbers, but it wasn’t.
I did some other tasks throughout the day. I don’t know if I have mentioned this in the past, but one of the surprising things about my internship is the lack of modeling I have done. I thought we would be doing a lot more. Finally, though, I got to work a little with a model, just one piece (which is better than no piece). I had to spread the P&L (profit and loss) from the management presentation. However, the numbers they presented didn’t quite ad up because of rounding. So for me I had to tweak numbers here and their and shape the model to fit the managements projections. What was nice an relieving was the fact that had the analyst not been on vacation, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I would have just sat behind him. So it was nice to have to AS trust me enough to do.
The last thing I did was spread a transaction cost. I zeroed in and spread that sucker in 15 minutes. When I was done I was like, “Is that it? Wait that can’t be it, that was way to quick.” An analyst checked my work and said, “It’s right. Looks good.” I couldn’t believe myself and how far I have come since I first started here. I remember when it would take hours to spread one comp. Now it takes just a few minutes.
Well this is it. It is coming down to the wire. I can’t emphasize enough about how bad I just want to tear it up. Go out guns blazing. My goal is to kill it for the nest few weeks, work tired long hours and return to school happy and with an offer hopefully.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Take me out to another ball game?
Tuesday: Can't remember
Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Thursday: 6:30 a.m. - 4:30 a.m. I don't think I have ever stayed awake for 22 hours straight
Friday: 10:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday-- Today was the last day the analyst I have been working with on Real Deal will be here. He left on vacation for 10 days. Two good things have come from that happening: (1) I will be given some more responsibility and (2) Here is my chance to escape and get staffed on some other projects with other bankers. Not that I am trying to get out of work on this project, but I know that with the analyst gone some bandwidth will open up.
One thing I had a hard time with with this analyst was his teaching style. He liked for me to come sit behind his desk and watch him. Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't learn much from those times, and now that he is gone I won't be sitting behind him shadowing him. Other approaches I have seen, which for me is the best is when the analyst can sit behind me and let me do the navigating. One of the analysts I have worked with will do that--it takes a lot of patience on his part, but I learn a lot. What this analyst will do is say things like, "press alt c.." so as I do it, I learn. He will also let me think when I get stuck rather than solve the answer for me.
Anyway, I got the down low on what I need to take responsibility for and off he went.
Thursday-- I had a call in the morning at 6:45 a.m. I decided to take it from home. It was for the book that had my picture in it. So here I am lying in bed listening to a management team pitch to another management team in NYC. It was a little hard to hear, and there was a lot of parts I had no idea what they were talking about, but what was cool is the MD referring to me as an analyst and not just a summer analyst.
I kind of played the glorified secretary up until about 3:00 p.m. I updated a meeting agenda to reflect all the new participants. Next week we have alot of management presentations. I think one of the most surprising things about Real Deal is the fact that this company is junk and yet competitors and PE and VC firms are going nuts trying to meet with management. Then again, I be the MDs have seen this before, where there is a lot of interest initially and then in the end we struggle to find buyers.
At 4:00 we had the First Annual [West Coast Bank] Softball Tournament. Can I say, I have never seen a more pathetic group of people try to play softball. I kept thinking, "Wow this is really humbling to even the most senior of bankers. These guys are horrible." It kind of made me feel good that I have such a well rounded life and have played sports since I was a kid. It was a lot of fun and I got some good laughs, I think everybody had a good time. One of the things it reconfirmed for me is that there is a life outside of banking and the fact that no one is in shape and really uncoordinated says that this lifestyle is not preferred. Boy I love being outside, but there comes a time you have to pay your dues.
When I got back, it was back to the grind. I got staffed on a project with deliverables that next morning. I had to spread 3 transaction comps. You wouldn't think that 3 would take that long, but imagine trying to find information on target companies from 2000, 2003, and yesterday. It was tough. I searched...and searched...and searched. One thing I have noticed about bankers they don't take giving up lightly. You really have to come to them having exhausted your resources before you say, "I can't find this information." I especially was working with a banker who I have noticed doesn't give any slack. So I just kept pounding it until I found as much as I could. What happened? It took me until 4:30 a.m. to find what I could. So I approached her with my back-up and defense, ready to answer any question..."Did you look in Thomson One,"
"Not only did I look in Thomson One, I looked in Reuters, Dealogic, MergerMarket, etc..."
Friday-- I woke up to email after email not responding to them (because they were all RFI or general emails) until it dawned on me. I have a call I am supposed to be on. It had already started and though I never talk on them, I always get comments from them. I never get on calls after they have started because of the beeping noise it produces when you enter the meeting. The last thing I want is some CEO saying after the meeting has started, "Who just joined?" "Oh its me the retarded intern who spaced the call. How is everyone doing?" I would get nailed.
So I came into the office and caught up with the AS on the deal and there were no comments! Not only that, but my day was pathetic. I had nothing to do all day. I even sent an email to the staffer requesting to be staffed and nothing. It made for a crummy day, but will make for a sweet weekend.
Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Thursday: 6:30 a.m. - 4:30 a.m. I don't think I have ever stayed awake for 22 hours straight
Friday: 10:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday-- Today was the last day the analyst I have been working with on Real Deal will be here. He left on vacation for 10 days. Two good things have come from that happening: (1) I will be given some more responsibility and (2) Here is my chance to escape and get staffed on some other projects with other bankers. Not that I am trying to get out of work on this project, but I know that with the analyst gone some bandwidth will open up.
One thing I had a hard time with with this analyst was his teaching style. He liked for me to come sit behind his desk and watch him. Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't learn much from those times, and now that he is gone I won't be sitting behind him shadowing him. Other approaches I have seen, which for me is the best is when the analyst can sit behind me and let me do the navigating. One of the analysts I have worked with will do that--it takes a lot of patience on his part, but I learn a lot. What this analyst will do is say things like, "press alt c.." so as I do it, I learn. He will also let me think when I get stuck rather than solve the answer for me.
Anyway, I got the down low on what I need to take responsibility for and off he went.
Thursday-- I had a call in the morning at 6:45 a.m. I decided to take it from home. It was for the book that had my picture in it. So here I am lying in bed listening to a management team pitch to another management team in NYC. It was a little hard to hear, and there was a lot of parts I had no idea what they were talking about, but what was cool is the MD referring to me as an analyst and not just a summer analyst.
I kind of played the glorified secretary up until about 3:00 p.m. I updated a meeting agenda to reflect all the new participants. Next week we have alot of management presentations. I think one of the most surprising things about Real Deal is the fact that this company is junk and yet competitors and PE and VC firms are going nuts trying to meet with management. Then again, I be the MDs have seen this before, where there is a lot of interest initially and then in the end we struggle to find buyers.
At 4:00 we had the First Annual [West Coast Bank] Softball Tournament. Can I say, I have never seen a more pathetic group of people try to play softball. I kept thinking, "Wow this is really humbling to even the most senior of bankers. These guys are horrible." It kind of made me feel good that I have such a well rounded life and have played sports since I was a kid. It was a lot of fun and I got some good laughs, I think everybody had a good time. One of the things it reconfirmed for me is that there is a life outside of banking and the fact that no one is in shape and really uncoordinated says that this lifestyle is not preferred. Boy I love being outside, but there comes a time you have to pay your dues.
When I got back, it was back to the grind. I got staffed on a project with deliverables that next morning. I had to spread 3 transaction comps. You wouldn't think that 3 would take that long, but imagine trying to find information on target companies from 2000, 2003, and yesterday. It was tough. I searched...and searched...and searched. One thing I have noticed about bankers they don't take giving up lightly. You really have to come to them having exhausted your resources before you say, "I can't find this information." I especially was working with a banker who I have noticed doesn't give any slack. So I just kept pounding it until I found as much as I could. What happened? It took me until 4:30 a.m. to find what I could. So I approached her with my back-up and defense, ready to answer any question..."Did you look in Thomson One,"
"Not only did I look in Thomson One, I looked in Reuters, Dealogic, MergerMarket, etc..."
Friday-- I woke up to email after email not responding to them (because they were all RFI or general emails) until it dawned on me. I have a call I am supposed to be on. It had already started and though I never talk on them, I always get comments from them. I never get on calls after they have started because of the beeping noise it produces when you enter the meeting. The last thing I want is some CEO saying after the meeting has started, "Who just joined?" "Oh its me the retarded intern who spaced the call. How is everyone doing?" I would get nailed.
So I came into the office and caught up with the AS on the deal and there were no comments! Not only that, but my day was pathetic. I had nothing to do all day. I even sent an email to the staffer requesting to be staffed and nothing. It made for a crummy day, but will make for a sweet weekend.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Take me out to the ball game!
Friday: Can't remember
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 a.m.
Sunday: 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Monday: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Rusticcharm asked some good questions that I actually want to address, because I think it’s important. The questions are “Do you feel heavy competition with the other interns? Do they treat you as though you are a threat? Does this distract you at all? Flip side Its pretty evident that you have a good and balanced relationship with the MD and VP's but what about your competition??? Are they (interns) a serious threat to YOU and YOUR job offer?”
Interestingly enough there really is no competition. That is, I don’t feel like I am trying to beat out one particular intern for a full time position. The competition is non-existent for a couple of reasons (1) No intern really knows how many offers the bank will make. They might give us all offers, they might cut us all off. To compete with one another would be silly because our reviews are not based on (and I would guess full time offers as well) our output relative to our peers. (2) It’s hard to gauge how well you are doing in comparison to other interns in that your schedules and work load are completely different. For example, I share an office with another intern. A week or so ago, I never saw the kid past 9:00 and I was worried he wasn’t working hard. Come to find out his assignments were just really easy. This week, however, I have left the office at midnight while he has been staying until 3-4 in the morning. So basically, for the most part, we all work our hardest to do our own assignments to the best of our ability with out competition.
In the end if you look at it like, 4 spots and 6 interns then yes we are competing. But I see it as what I have to do to get one of those spots.
Having said all that, I actually have really good relationships with all the interns. You kind of have to band together. They are about the only people in the office you can say what you want to without being judged. Last night I walked in to my office and said hello to the intern sharing my office. He responded but you could tell he was discouraged. I asked him what was up, and he got up, closed the door and vented for 10 minutes about how an associate was putting him through the wringer for no good reason. Who else besides another fellow intern could you turn to? All day we take it from the analysts and associates and even though they and the rest of the banking world think they are flawless, sometimes they're not. And having an intern catch a bankers mistakes can be embarrassing for the banker (depending on their ego) but we can’t fire back and say, “Good one you idiot. Pubic Market Overview, that’s the last market I want to know about and the last market I want to tell the client about. Get your head on straight or go home because you’re wasting my time with your lack of attention to detail.” No instead we have to say, “I think this word is spelled wrong, I am not sure…”
Anyway, let me catch you up on the past week. Friday, I can’t remember what I did. Saturday I got staffed on a job with an associate covering a FIG (financial institutions group) book, which of course is random because I am in technology / media. By far this guy is my favorite AS. Really easy to work with, I can actually read his handwriting, he is a perfectionist. Even his desk is always clean. Additionally, he doesn’t care so much that I am a summer intern as much as he cares about getting the work done. All I had to do was (yes you guest it, my favorite) company profiles. They weren’t that bad and I feel like I am becoming a pro. The thing I am doing now is copying the same format from previous profiles I have done and just finding the company specific information.
Saturday night I went to a party in San Francisco with all the bankers from our office. It was held at an associates apartment in the city. Everyone got wasted, and of course my entertainment as the sober one was watching and hearing the funny things people say. One analyst told me I put his mom in a bomb. I just told him I was sorry and that I wouldn’t do it again to his new mom. He thanked me and went on his way. After the party we went to this mansion of one of the summer analysts. This kids dad is a partner at a very well known and prestigious venture capital firm. I mean, the kid has a go-kart track at his primary residence. This place was just for when they were in the city.
The place was massive. It is five levels with a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It had a very classical look to it with detailed, carved pillars and ceilings. It was pretty amazing. I would say the place is worth $50-100 million with location and size.
Sunday—I went in to work after church for what was supposed to be “a couple hours.” Things ended up taking 2 days. I was assigned to create a spreadsheet documenting certain dates and activities with a client. The nerving part was that this was directly for a sr. vice president with no AN, AS, or VP in between. I think I did pretty well and responded to his requests in a very timely manner. Any changes he made were changes to his preference rather than errors. So to recap: I have been working for an AS directly, a VP directly, and an SVP directly. I think the hard part was when the analyst came looking for my help I had to tell him a couple of times I was too busy. He was understanding, but I still felt bad because as much as I want to help, I can’t overpromise.
Monday—Here is my last story for this post. Monday at noon one of the MDs came in my office and said, “Warpang, lets go to lunch.” So of course I dropped everything and went out to lunch with him. We had a great conversation at lunch and he asked the question, “So when are you done?”
“August 22 is the last day.”
“When does school start?”
“I think like September 2…”
“So what are you going to do between then, have any plans?”
“Well,” I started throwing out some ideas and then I said, “I do know this—On Saturday the 23rd I am going to a Giants game. They play the Padres and the Giants are my favorite team.”
So we talked for a few minutes about the Giants which happened to be his favorite team too, and then 30 seconds after lunch he comes into my office and says, “You said 23rd right?” And hands me two tickets for the game. I was stunned. I said, “Wow this is really nice of you. I don't know what else to say but thank you.”
“I have had season tickets for years. I am always trying to get rid of them because I can never make it.” I looked on-line to see where the seats are and they are just above the 3rd base dugout. So now I have 2 tickets to the Giants came for August 23…who wants to come?:)
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 a.m.
Sunday: 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Monday: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Rusticcharm asked some good questions that I actually want to address, because I think it’s important. The questions are “Do you feel heavy competition with the other interns? Do they treat you as though you are a threat? Does this distract you at all? Flip side Its pretty evident that you have a good and balanced relationship with the MD and VP's but what about your competition??? Are they (interns) a serious threat to YOU and YOUR job offer?”
Interestingly enough there really is no competition. That is, I don’t feel like I am trying to beat out one particular intern for a full time position. The competition is non-existent for a couple of reasons (1) No intern really knows how many offers the bank will make. They might give us all offers, they might cut us all off. To compete with one another would be silly because our reviews are not based on (and I would guess full time offers as well) our output relative to our peers. (2) It’s hard to gauge how well you are doing in comparison to other interns in that your schedules and work load are completely different. For example, I share an office with another intern. A week or so ago, I never saw the kid past 9:00 and I was worried he wasn’t working hard. Come to find out his assignments were just really easy. This week, however, I have left the office at midnight while he has been staying until 3-4 in the morning. So basically, for the most part, we all work our hardest to do our own assignments to the best of our ability with out competition.
In the end if you look at it like, 4 spots and 6 interns then yes we are competing. But I see it as what I have to do to get one of those spots.
Having said all that, I actually have really good relationships with all the interns. You kind of have to band together. They are about the only people in the office you can say what you want to without being judged. Last night I walked in to my office and said hello to the intern sharing my office. He responded but you could tell he was discouraged. I asked him what was up, and he got up, closed the door and vented for 10 minutes about how an associate was putting him through the wringer for no good reason. Who else besides another fellow intern could you turn to? All day we take it from the analysts and associates and even though they and the rest of the banking world think they are flawless, sometimes they're not. And having an intern catch a bankers mistakes can be embarrassing for the banker (depending on their ego) but we can’t fire back and say, “Good one you idiot. Pubic Market Overview, that’s the last market I want to know about and the last market I want to tell the client about. Get your head on straight or go home because you’re wasting my time with your lack of attention to detail.” No instead we have to say, “I think this word is spelled wrong, I am not sure…”
Anyway, let me catch you up on the past week. Friday, I can’t remember what I did. Saturday I got staffed on a job with an associate covering a FIG (financial institutions group) book, which of course is random because I am in technology / media. By far this guy is my favorite AS. Really easy to work with, I can actually read his handwriting, he is a perfectionist. Even his desk is always clean. Additionally, he doesn’t care so much that I am a summer intern as much as he cares about getting the work done. All I had to do was (yes you guest it, my favorite) company profiles. They weren’t that bad and I feel like I am becoming a pro. The thing I am doing now is copying the same format from previous profiles I have done and just finding the company specific information.
Saturday night I went to a party in San Francisco with all the bankers from our office. It was held at an associates apartment in the city. Everyone got wasted, and of course my entertainment as the sober one was watching and hearing the funny things people say. One analyst told me I put his mom in a bomb. I just told him I was sorry and that I wouldn’t do it again to his new mom. He thanked me and went on his way. After the party we went to this mansion of one of the summer analysts. This kids dad is a partner at a very well known and prestigious venture capital firm. I mean, the kid has a go-kart track at his primary residence. This place was just for when they were in the city.
The place was massive. It is five levels with a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It had a very classical look to it with detailed, carved pillars and ceilings. It was pretty amazing. I would say the place is worth $50-100 million with location and size.
Sunday—I went in to work after church for what was supposed to be “a couple hours.” Things ended up taking 2 days. I was assigned to create a spreadsheet documenting certain dates and activities with a client. The nerving part was that this was directly for a sr. vice president with no AN, AS, or VP in between. I think I did pretty well and responded to his requests in a very timely manner. Any changes he made were changes to his preference rather than errors. So to recap: I have been working for an AS directly, a VP directly, and an SVP directly. I think the hard part was when the analyst came looking for my help I had to tell him a couple of times I was too busy. He was understanding, but I still felt bad because as much as I want to help, I can’t overpromise.
Monday—Here is my last story for this post. Monday at noon one of the MDs came in my office and said, “Warpang, lets go to lunch.” So of course I dropped everything and went out to lunch with him. We had a great conversation at lunch and he asked the question, “So when are you done?”
“August 22 is the last day.”
“When does school start?”
“I think like September 2…”
“So what are you going to do between then, have any plans?”
“Well,” I started throwing out some ideas and then I said, “I do know this—On Saturday the 23rd I am going to a Giants game. They play the Padres and the Giants are my favorite team.”
So we talked for a few minutes about the Giants which happened to be his favorite team too, and then 30 seconds after lunch he comes into my office and says, “You said 23rd right?” And hands me two tickets for the game. I was stunned. I said, “Wow this is really nice of you. I don't know what else to say but thank you.”
“I have had season tickets for years. I am always trying to get rid of them because I can never make it.” I looked on-line to see where the seats are and they are just above the 3rd base dugout. So now I have 2 tickets to the Giants came for August 23…who wants to come?:)
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Pool Shark
Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.
Thursday: 9:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
These past couple of days have been slow. A lot of the bankers are in NY and other areas as well. Real Deal has been interesting. The company just had its quarterly earnings call and one of the top executives was replaced making things very interesting. I wish I could say more, but truly I find joy in being in the front lines of all this action.
So over the past two days I have done a bit of rouge staffing and printing books and flipping books; jobs that secretaries can do. However, I have been kicking trash on these comps which has taken along time. For example today I spread about 5 and it took me 5 hours. I keep asking myself, "Why do these take so long?" And the truth is, they take long because I have to stop and think. Not only that, but I am constantly double checking, because in some cases I am not too confident with my numbers. After I finished a couple one of the analysts checked my work and I was spotless.
Tonight all the bankers went to a bar/pool hall. We had the upper floor reserved for just us. The Global Head of Tech showed up and came over and started talking to a couple of us. During our conversation I asked the MD if he was a pool shark to which he replied, "Well, lets find out!"
The room suddenly backed away from the table and it was just me and him. Was I nervous? Of Course! This is not only my boss...this is everyone's boss. A couple of the analyst were teasing, "You are in a lose/lose situation. If you lose he will think you are giving in and you lose the offer. If you win, well there goes your offer, you can't beat the boss." Even he was cracking jokes. This is the same MD that I am working on Real Deal with, so he knows me a little bit. During the game I was pretty much getting killed until he scratched and then I came back to win putting the 8-ball corner pocket. Everyone in the room was like, "OHHHH!" The MD smiled and shook my hand, and said "Good game, I am glad you didn't back down."
The thing is, those of you who know me really well know that I suck at pool. I get beat all the time. later that night I got challenged by a VP and beat him 2 games to 1. I don't know where all this pool skill came from, but I had a lot of fun and kept thinking, "Man, I know none of my friends at other banks get this kind of experience or exposure to senior bankers." I really do have a good office. No one banker comes off to be smarter or better than anyone else. Yeah, some have gotten in my grill, but they don't think or come off better than me.
This weekend is looking pretty free if I can get these comps done. I got the reminder today that I have 4 weeks left. Boy does time fly. Seriously, days run into days run into days.
Thursday: 9:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
These past couple of days have been slow. A lot of the bankers are in NY and other areas as well. Real Deal has been interesting. The company just had its quarterly earnings call and one of the top executives was replaced making things very interesting. I wish I could say more, but truly I find joy in being in the front lines of all this action.
So over the past two days I have done a bit of rouge staffing and printing books and flipping books; jobs that secretaries can do. However, I have been kicking trash on these comps which has taken along time. For example today I spread about 5 and it took me 5 hours. I keep asking myself, "Why do these take so long?" And the truth is, they take long because I have to stop and think. Not only that, but I am constantly double checking, because in some cases I am not too confident with my numbers. After I finished a couple one of the analysts checked my work and I was spotless.
Tonight all the bankers went to a bar/pool hall. We had the upper floor reserved for just us. The Global Head of Tech showed up and came over and started talking to a couple of us. During our conversation I asked the MD if he was a pool shark to which he replied, "Well, lets find out!"
The room suddenly backed away from the table and it was just me and him. Was I nervous? Of Course! This is not only my boss...this is everyone's boss. A couple of the analyst were teasing, "You are in a lose/lose situation. If you lose he will think you are giving in and you lose the offer. If you win, well there goes your offer, you can't beat the boss." Even he was cracking jokes. This is the same MD that I am working on Real Deal with, so he knows me a little bit. During the game I was pretty much getting killed until he scratched and then I came back to win putting the 8-ball corner pocket. Everyone in the room was like, "OHHHH!" The MD smiled and shook my hand, and said "Good game, I am glad you didn't back down."
The thing is, those of you who know me really well know that I suck at pool. I get beat all the time. later that night I got challenged by a VP and beat him 2 games to 1. I don't know where all this pool skill came from, but I had a lot of fun and kept thinking, "Man, I know none of my friends at other banks get this kind of experience or exposure to senior bankers." I really do have a good office. No one banker comes off to be smarter or better than anyone else. Yeah, some have gotten in my grill, but they don't think or come off better than me.
This weekend is looking pretty free if I can get these comps done. I got the reminder today that I have 4 weeks left. Boy does time fly. Seriously, days run into days run into days.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Rogue Staffing
Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.
Last night at about 3:30 in the morning I got an email while I was in bed that I was staffed on a project. It was a rogue staff, which means, I am not really on the deal or will be on the deal but they need me to get some work done.
Immediately when I got in I started working on it and was able to complete the assignment to format a comps spreadsheet to only show certain comps and to paste it into a powerpoint "rider" (a rider is a couple of slides removed from the main presentation to edit so you don't screw up the main presentation) before the AS could even bring me up to speed.
I get an email 2 seconds after I send my result asking me to come by his office so he can show me what to do. I went to his office and he had pulled up my work and was like, "So you're done? Is everything right?" I said yes I was done, and was awaiting his suggestions. He gave me a couple suggestions. I finished it up. What was kind of funny is that the AS was also rogue staffed, so he wasn't quite up to speed. Throughout the day we would get emails from the VP heading the project and few minutes later I would get emails from the AS, saying, "Do you want me to take care of this?" And I would reply, "Its already taken care of." In fact the last email the AS sent was, "Could you send the books to productions?" I replied, "Already printed, flipped and sitting on the VPs chair." I think the AS was happy, and I was too because I felt like I didn't waste any time trying to improve on the suggestions in my mid review--be more efficent.
Besides those little jobs throughout the day, I also worked on this teaser. I think I mentioned that in a previous post, but we are trying to wrap this part of Real Deal up. Work has been slow because the AS who is running Real Deal has been slammed with other deals. The week itself looks pretty slow which will give me a chance to catch up on these 20 comps I have to spread by had before August 1.
Last night at about 3:30 in the morning I got an email while I was in bed that I was staffed on a project. It was a rogue staff, which means, I am not really on the deal or will be on the deal but they need me to get some work done.
Immediately when I got in I started working on it and was able to complete the assignment to format a comps spreadsheet to only show certain comps and to paste it into a powerpoint "rider" (a rider is a couple of slides removed from the main presentation to edit so you don't screw up the main presentation) before the AS could even bring me up to speed.
I get an email 2 seconds after I send my result asking me to come by his office so he can show me what to do. I went to his office and he had pulled up my work and was like, "So you're done? Is everything right?" I said yes I was done, and was awaiting his suggestions. He gave me a couple suggestions. I finished it up. What was kind of funny is that the AS was also rogue staffed, so he wasn't quite up to speed. Throughout the day we would get emails from the VP heading the project and few minutes later I would get emails from the AS, saying, "Do you want me to take care of this?" And I would reply, "Its already taken care of." In fact the last email the AS sent was, "Could you send the books to productions?" I replied, "Already printed, flipped and sitting on the VPs chair." I think the AS was happy, and I was too because I felt like I didn't waste any time trying to improve on the suggestions in my mid review--be more efficent.
Besides those little jobs throughout the day, I also worked on this teaser. I think I mentioned that in a previous post, but we are trying to wrap this part of Real Deal up. Work has been slow because the AS who is running Real Deal has been slammed with other deals. The week itself looks pretty slow which will give me a chance to catch up on these 20 comps I have to spread by had before August 1.
Monday, July 21, 2008
"Good Foul...Good Foul..."
Friday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.
Sunday: 5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Monday: 8:00 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.
The weekend was pretty slow. I mostly worked on the company profile that was due this morning (Monday morning). I made a big mistake. I came in on Sunday not to work but to do some personal things and the summer associate I was working with say me and said, "Oh, you didn't have to come in..." and WHAM! I got a load of work. Saturday was similar-- came in for what I thought would be an in-and-out afternoon, and these profiles kept us here til 10:00. The thing that was most frustrating was this summer associate didn't know much more than I did when it came to some more technical stuff. There were a couple of issues where we didn't see eye to eye, not anything serious or confrontational, more like we kept making good points, which confused the both of us.
Monday-- Started off the morning with the morning meeting. I like the morning meeting because it helps me stay connected with the markets to some extent. Honestly, I don't feel like I am as up-to-speed on the markets like I was during school.
After the meeting the summer associate and I met with the senior vice president to discuss our company profile. We met at 10:00 a.m. and had to have this profile sent to the Partner of a really well known P.E. firm at 11:00 a.m. There were a couple of things that we need to change and it didn't take too long. At 11:00 a.m. We had the conference call with the partner. One thing I would say about my experience thus far, I am surprised at how much senior exposure I have had. It was good to hear this SVP try to pitch this company to the partner. I didn't think he did that great of a job, but who knows.
Up until the afternoon things were really slow. Then all the interns got an email. We each were assigned 20 companies to spread by August 1. Now to give you an idea of how long it takes to spread one company... for me it takes about an hour. We had to do them all by hand, which means we had to look up, print out, highlight and tab all our numbers rather than link them to this database that has the numbers anyway. Sounds wasteful, but the truth is hand spread numbers are more up-to-date that the database ones. Of course you want to check and recheck your numbers, so that take a little time. Additionally, for me, its not as easy as looking through the book and POOF! there's the number, sometimes you have to dig to find out what they mean by "restricted cash" and things like that.
About 6:45 p.m. I had my mid term reviews. There is a funny story to that. I went in to the staffers office and we had the recruiter on the phone. The staffer did most the talking. He talked first about my strengths, "Initiative," "Asks the right questions," "Carry myself professionally," "Hungry for the job, want to learn." He also mentioned that people were able to notice an increase in attention to detail from the first day to the day they submitted reviews and an increase in final product submitted. They liked to see the increase and the showing of improvement.
The things they wanted me to work on included taking a step back and really trying to understand the bigger picture-- in other words, not just do it to do it, but really see where my work will come into play. Also I need to work on efficiency, making sure I can balance multiple tasks and be able to complete assignments quicker. And lastly, I need to gain more technical experience. The staffer said that was more of his fault because of the jobs he has staffed me on. He mentioned putting me on more assignments to do some modeling. To date I really haven't stretched to far in that area.
At the end he said, "Overall, good foul." In fact he said it couple of time throughout, and I didn't know what he meant by it. I didn't dare ask, I wanted to think about it more. I talked to a couple of other interns and told them what he said. They were a little confused, and then of course I get thinking (as I felt "good foul" was not a "good thing") that I should get more clarification. I mean, I am working my hardest, doing the best I know how and I get along with everyone. So I sent the staffer an email, "I just have one quick question. I have looked over my notes and was wondering what you meant by, 'Good Foul.' I think of baseball when a player connects but its not in the right direction, could you clarify?"
He writes back, "Good File..."
I felt like an idiot. The staffer is from Africa and has a pretty thick English accent. "Good File." Got it.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.
Sunday: 5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Monday: 8:00 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.
The weekend was pretty slow. I mostly worked on the company profile that was due this morning (Monday morning). I made a big mistake. I came in on Sunday not to work but to do some personal things and the summer associate I was working with say me and said, "Oh, you didn't have to come in..." and WHAM! I got a load of work. Saturday was similar-- came in for what I thought would be an in-and-out afternoon, and these profiles kept us here til 10:00. The thing that was most frustrating was this summer associate didn't know much more than I did when it came to some more technical stuff. There were a couple of issues where we didn't see eye to eye, not anything serious or confrontational, more like we kept making good points, which confused the both of us.
Monday-- Started off the morning with the morning meeting. I like the morning meeting because it helps me stay connected with the markets to some extent. Honestly, I don't feel like I am as up-to-speed on the markets like I was during school.
After the meeting the summer associate and I met with the senior vice president to discuss our company profile. We met at 10:00 a.m. and had to have this profile sent to the Partner of a really well known P.E. firm at 11:00 a.m. There were a couple of things that we need to change and it didn't take too long. At 11:00 a.m. We had the conference call with the partner. One thing I would say about my experience thus far, I am surprised at how much senior exposure I have had. It was good to hear this SVP try to pitch this company to the partner. I didn't think he did that great of a job, but who knows.
Up until the afternoon things were really slow. Then all the interns got an email. We each were assigned 20 companies to spread by August 1. Now to give you an idea of how long it takes to spread one company... for me it takes about an hour. We had to do them all by hand, which means we had to look up, print out, highlight and tab all our numbers rather than link them to this database that has the numbers anyway. Sounds wasteful, but the truth is hand spread numbers are more up-to-date that the database ones. Of course you want to check and recheck your numbers, so that take a little time. Additionally, for me, its not as easy as looking through the book and POOF! there's the number, sometimes you have to dig to find out what they mean by "restricted cash" and things like that.
About 6:45 p.m. I had my mid term reviews. There is a funny story to that. I went in to the staffers office and we had the recruiter on the phone. The staffer did most the talking. He talked first about my strengths, "Initiative," "Asks the right questions," "Carry myself professionally," "Hungry for the job, want to learn." He also mentioned that people were able to notice an increase in attention to detail from the first day to the day they submitted reviews and an increase in final product submitted. They liked to see the increase and the showing of improvement.
The things they wanted me to work on included taking a step back and really trying to understand the bigger picture-- in other words, not just do it to do it, but really see where my work will come into play. Also I need to work on efficiency, making sure I can balance multiple tasks and be able to complete assignments quicker. And lastly, I need to gain more technical experience. The staffer said that was more of his fault because of the jobs he has staffed me on. He mentioned putting me on more assignments to do some modeling. To date I really haven't stretched to far in that area.
At the end he said, "Overall, good foul." In fact he said it couple of time throughout, and I didn't know what he meant by it. I didn't dare ask, I wanted to think about it more. I talked to a couple of other interns and told them what he said. They were a little confused, and then of course I get thinking (as I felt "good foul" was not a "good thing") that I should get more clarification. I mean, I am working my hardest, doing the best I know how and I get along with everyone. So I sent the staffer an email, "I just have one quick question. I have looked over my notes and was wondering what you meant by, 'Good Foul.' I think of baseball when a player connects but its not in the right direction, could you clarify?"
He writes back, "Good File..."
I felt like an idiot. The staffer is from Africa and has a pretty thick English accent. "Good File." Got it.
Friday, July 18, 2008
We Got The Mandate
Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Thursday: 9:00 a.m. - 1:30 a.m.
Wednesday was the actual day that the senior bankers presented to the board of directors. In fact, lets make this easy and call it "Project Real Deal" of "Real Deal" rather than always referring to it as "the live deal I am on..." because that can be confusing.
Things are really going to pick up now and there are a lot of moving pieces. I can see this being the only project I work on for the rest of my internship. In fact, in about 2 weeks the analyst that I am working with on the project will be going on a 10 day vacation, which means I really need to get up to speed because I might be responsible for some of the things he does, and I would hate to not perform especially so close to my final reviews.
As far as what was taking place in the office on Wednesday, it was kind of dead. Here and there I would get little secretarial assignments to run stuff around to different bankers. In this case, some might ask why I was here so late. About 12:00 I got a phone call from a friend at another bank doing his internship, and then my other friend, The Analyst called me as well and then next thing you know we have a little conference call and caught up with each others lives. The other analyst here from my school joined as well. It is so good to here how well they are doing, and of course to hear that The Analyst got an offer. We seemed to have formed a very knit group that I can see being strong well into our careers.
I also got staffed to another project doing a 25 page company profile. I was only responsible for about 8 slides. Let me tell you, the one task I see myself hating the most (and already do) is company profiles. In this case, I am updating slides from a previous presentation on this company. The numbers part is easy and fun; its the qualitative stuff that gets annoying.
Let me give you an example. The senior banker wants me to update 2 pie charts that show the growth of the companies international business over the years. So the old pie charts where 2004 and 2006 respectively. He wanted to keep 2004, and simply just show 2007 side by side. So I did it and it didn't take long. But then came that attention to detail. I noticed when I was looking over my numbers that the 2 categories for the pie chart were "International" and "United States" so it showed 25% of the pie being international and the other 75% being U.S. (I hope you can visualize this). Then for 2007 the pie chart had the 2 categories as "International" and "North America." At first I thought, oh I accidentally used U.S. and North America interchangeably. But then after looking through the companies 10k, I realized that the labels were right, but the company changed how they reported revenue. So I had to go back and determine how much revenue was in "International" for 2004 or how much revenue was in "North America" in 2007 for Canada and Mexico. Well, to be frank I could find nothing on those specific of numbers. I still don't know what I am going to do, but back to my original point as to why profiles are the garbage of responsibilities, looking for those numbers has taken well over 3 hours and I have plenty of other fish to fry.
Thursday for Real Deal we (and when I say we I mean the 2 MDs 2 AS 1AN and I) had a phone conference with the management team. When I came in the room the senior associate called the MD by name and said, "Hey I don't know if you met Warpang, but..." Then the MD interrupted and said, "Of course I know Warpang, we have met. Geez what do you think, I am an idiot? He goes to this school and likes these things." I started to laugh just because here is this MD who does know me and he rips into the associate who ripped into me a couple days earlier. Justice is served!
We wanted to lay out the timeline of how things are going to take place. We got some interesting news from management. One of the buyers the MDs had in mind to pitch Real Deal to apparently is looking for a buyer themselves! The cat was let out of the bag when another investment bank called Real Deal and asked if they would be interested in taking a peak. The management team handled the situation well. The MDs were pacing around the office, "Should we call the other bank? No, no. Lets hold off....But what if we can...no lets call the company...what do you think about..." They went on and on strategizing the best way to go about things. The ultimate package would be to have one of the PE shops that has shown interest buy both companies which hold the #1 and #2 spots in the industry.
It was cool to kind of step in the mind of these MDs and I couldn't help from grinning out of excitement and interest as they were talking. I kept covering my mouth in such a way to look like I was thinking hard when in actuality I was trying to hold back the corners of my mouth from smiling. I mean this is the real stuff, and not only am I on the front lines... I am with the Generals.
This weekend shouldn't be too nasty. All the bankers want to take off, so I imagine having some free time to see the new Batman movie, which has been the talk of the office.
Thursday: 9:00 a.m. - 1:30 a.m.
Wednesday was the actual day that the senior bankers presented to the board of directors. In fact, lets make this easy and call it "Project Real Deal" of "Real Deal" rather than always referring to it as "the live deal I am on..." because that can be confusing.
Things are really going to pick up now and there are a lot of moving pieces. I can see this being the only project I work on for the rest of my internship. In fact, in about 2 weeks the analyst that I am working with on the project will be going on a 10 day vacation, which means I really need to get up to speed because I might be responsible for some of the things he does, and I would hate to not perform especially so close to my final reviews.
As far as what was taking place in the office on Wednesday, it was kind of dead. Here and there I would get little secretarial assignments to run stuff around to different bankers. In this case, some might ask why I was here so late. About 12:00 I got a phone call from a friend at another bank doing his internship, and then my other friend, The Analyst called me as well and then next thing you know we have a little conference call and caught up with each others lives. The other analyst here from my school joined as well. It is so good to here how well they are doing, and of course to hear that The Analyst got an offer. We seemed to have formed a very knit group that I can see being strong well into our careers.
I also got staffed to another project doing a 25 page company profile. I was only responsible for about 8 slides. Let me tell you, the one task I see myself hating the most (and already do) is company profiles. In this case, I am updating slides from a previous presentation on this company. The numbers part is easy and fun; its the qualitative stuff that gets annoying.
Let me give you an example. The senior banker wants me to update 2 pie charts that show the growth of the companies international business over the years. So the old pie charts where 2004 and 2006 respectively. He wanted to keep 2004, and simply just show 2007 side by side. So I did it and it didn't take long. But then came that attention to detail. I noticed when I was looking over my numbers that the 2 categories for the pie chart were "International" and "United States" so it showed 25% of the pie being international and the other 75% being U.S. (I hope you can visualize this). Then for 2007 the pie chart had the 2 categories as "International" and "North America." At first I thought, oh I accidentally used U.S. and North America interchangeably. But then after looking through the companies 10k, I realized that the labels were right, but the company changed how they reported revenue. So I had to go back and determine how much revenue was in "International" for 2004 or how much revenue was in "North America" in 2007 for Canada and Mexico. Well, to be frank I could find nothing on those specific of numbers. I still don't know what I am going to do, but back to my original point as to why profiles are the garbage of responsibilities, looking for those numbers has taken well over 3 hours and I have plenty of other fish to fry.
Thursday for Real Deal we (and when I say we I mean the 2 MDs 2 AS 1AN and I) had a phone conference with the management team. When I came in the room the senior associate called the MD by name and said, "Hey I don't know if you met Warpang, but..." Then the MD interrupted and said, "Of course I know Warpang, we have met. Geez what do you think, I am an idiot? He goes to this school and likes these things." I started to laugh just because here is this MD who does know me and he rips into the associate who ripped into me a couple days earlier. Justice is served!
We wanted to lay out the timeline of how things are going to take place. We got some interesting news from management. One of the buyers the MDs had in mind to pitch Real Deal to apparently is looking for a buyer themselves! The cat was let out of the bag when another investment bank called Real Deal and asked if they would be interested in taking a peak. The management team handled the situation well. The MDs were pacing around the office, "Should we call the other bank? No, no. Lets hold off....But what if we can...no lets call the company...what do you think about..." They went on and on strategizing the best way to go about things. The ultimate package would be to have one of the PE shops that has shown interest buy both companies which hold the #1 and #2 spots in the industry.
It was cool to kind of step in the mind of these MDs and I couldn't help from grinning out of excitement and interest as they were talking. I kept covering my mouth in such a way to look like I was thinking hard when in actuality I was trying to hold back the corners of my mouth from smiling. I mean this is the real stuff, and not only am I on the front lines... I am with the Generals.
This weekend shouldn't be too nasty. All the bankers want to take off, so I imagine having some free time to see the new Batman movie, which has been the talk of the office.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Client Meetings
Sunday: 12:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Monday: 7:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
I gotta tell you about this client meeting. It was awesome. First let me tell you about Sunday.
I missed Church for the first time. Church starts at 1:00 p.m. for me and there is an earlier session at 9:00 a.m. Because I have been working a lot I haven't had time to do my laundry, AND I couldn't afford not to wash my clothes because of the whole poison oak thing. Additionally, the family I am staying with has already mentioned me leaving my laundry in the washer or dryer, so I basically have to babysit my laundry. So from 9:00-12:00 I did laundry and then I had to go into work to finish this book (Book = Deck = PowerPoint presentation) that was due by 3:00 p.m.
We didn't get the book done until 7:00 p.m. and the associate was pissed! He kept asking, "What took you guys so long? I don't get it, please help me understand why did this take so long?" This is the same AS that I mentioned earlier in my blog has been notorious for not being easy to work with. He just ripped into us. I learned somethings: (1) his approach was not inspiring. That is, the things he said did not cause us to really crank. (2) He never listened to us. So I stepped up and said some things. At one point in our meeting (there was a 1st year AS, me and an AN) we didn't have copies of the book and so he sent us to each go get a copy. As the other two walked out I said, "Can I talk to you after we are done?"
"About what?"
"Just talk, you know, get my head wrapped around things."
So after the meeting me and the AS talked and this is how our dialogue went down.
Me: "I know I am stupid summer intern and not too reliable at this point, but let me tell. I never saw the analyst or the other AS picking their nose. These guys cranked all night both Friday and Saturday. In their defense, I probably slowed them down because they had to double and triple check my numbers."
AS: "But still, okay it takes a few minutes to check numbers, but not 10 hours! Tell me what took so long. What if I would have said Friday afternoon we needed this book by Saturday night, you guys couldn't have done it!"
Me: "I will be honest. I don't know if you could pinpoint one thing that took us a really long time. The project as a whole just did take that much time. But the thing is, and I fully subscribe to this phenomenon that if you had asked us to get it to you by Saturday night, somehow we would have done it. We would have made it happen."
He calmed down a little and we discussed a few more things and then I said, "You know, I put you down to review me because I know you will give me an honest review and that's what I want. It floats around the office that you can be really tough, and also that you are the smartest banker here (and he really is I am not just saying that) and I am willing to make every effort to be on your team, because I know I will learn a lot."
Monday-- We had a client meeting at 9:00 in the morning. I had to be here at 7:15 to set up the projector and get a back-up laptop in case something went wrong. I also had to print all the documents for the meeting. It doesn't take long to do that secretary stuff, but we also have a video conference from 8:15 to 8:45 every Monday morning.
Clients roll in and it is the CFO and COO of a publicly traded company. From our team we had 2 MDs, 2 AS, 1 AN, and me. This company is struggling and has turned to us to advise them. They have a couple choices: (1) they can go-it-alone and go private. (2) They can be acquired by another company. Obviously if we as bankers can find a buyer, we will earn more money. Obviously if we find a buyer who will buy the company at a high price compared to the shares of the company we will make even more.
You could kind of tell the distress of the management team. As they presented their financials and also their operations, you could tell they wanted to be optimistic, but also didn't want to lead us on. The MDs sure know their stuff. I was impressed at how well versed the MDs were in all the current activity in the space. I was soaking it up and taking tons of notes. I knew that what they were saying would eventually end up in a book, and I was going to be working on that book.
The meeting lasted about 2 hours. After the meeting the management left and we discussed strategy and valuation and fees. Where we go from here is the MDs have to convince the Board of Directors tomorrow to go private or be bought out. If the board is on board then this transaction assuming we can find buyers, will take until about October. Most of the labor is front loaded, and where I can see the rest of my internship being spent. That is, we will be presenting, "Teasers" which are presentations used to tease and interest buyers into bidding on the company. I think what makes me laugh the most about this job is the art behind it. We just got done explaining to management how crappy their company is. Now we get to turn around and explain how awesome their company is to potential buyers.
Tuesday-- All we did all day was work on this book for the presentation tomorrow. let me explain one assignment to you that took 3-4 hours. I hate how long it takes me to find information. I had to spread a transaction comp. A transaction comp is what multiples were used when a certain merger, acquisition a "transaction" took place. Here are the field I needed in this spread: Acquirer, Target, Date Announced, Date completed, transaction amount (how much the deal cost) equity value (usually the same as the transaction amount unless debt was used as well), LTM Revenue LTM = Last twelve months, LTM EBITDA, FTM (future...) Revenue, and FTM EBITDA. EBITDA mean Earnings before interest and tax and depreciation and amortization. Seems pretty simple look in the 10Qs and 10Ks for this stuff.
Here is where the problem starts. In Feb 2008 the target company sold or divested a section of their business. So I had to go back and find out how much that company generated from that business. That is, I had to look over 200 pages for a sentence that simply said, "This portion of our business accounted for 60% of our revenue in this quarter." And, yes it was quarterly that I was looking for, not annually. Here is what I loved about the whole process. It took some thinking! But I got it. I found all the information. I always wondered in class back at school how I was ever going to remember this accounting or finance stuff, but in the moment, I knew exactly what I was looking for and it was like second nature. It is also amazing how tedious the process is. I mean, in my mind I am thinking, "lets just find out how much they made in revenue and take off 10%" No way! That would never float, you always have to consider every detail and be perfect and prove it when someone calls you on it, because they will!
I also helped out with some other things on the book and spread some more comps, but we got the book off tonight at a decent hour, 11:00.
Reviews are coming up and it will be interested to here what they think of me. I have a good feeling things will go well. I am sure there are things I need to work on. I am hoping things are transparent and clear. My biggest fear is being led into a false sense of security thinking everyone really likes me, but in the end not get the offer. I am also worried that reviews will be tough in that the market is really struggling right now. Recruiters will have to be tough, and just "okay" interns won't cut it.
Monday: 7:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
I gotta tell you about this client meeting. It was awesome. First let me tell you about Sunday.
I missed Church for the first time. Church starts at 1:00 p.m. for me and there is an earlier session at 9:00 a.m. Because I have been working a lot I haven't had time to do my laundry, AND I couldn't afford not to wash my clothes because of the whole poison oak thing. Additionally, the family I am staying with has already mentioned me leaving my laundry in the washer or dryer, so I basically have to babysit my laundry. So from 9:00-12:00 I did laundry and then I had to go into work to finish this book (Book = Deck = PowerPoint presentation) that was due by 3:00 p.m.
We didn't get the book done until 7:00 p.m. and the associate was pissed! He kept asking, "What took you guys so long? I don't get it, please help me understand why did this take so long?" This is the same AS that I mentioned earlier in my blog has been notorious for not being easy to work with. He just ripped into us. I learned somethings: (1) his approach was not inspiring. That is, the things he said did not cause us to really crank. (2) He never listened to us. So I stepped up and said some things. At one point in our meeting (there was a 1st year AS, me and an AN) we didn't have copies of the book and so he sent us to each go get a copy. As the other two walked out I said, "Can I talk to you after we are done?"
"About what?"
"Just talk, you know, get my head wrapped around things."
So after the meeting me and the AS talked and this is how our dialogue went down.
Me: "I know I am stupid summer intern and not too reliable at this point, but let me tell. I never saw the analyst or the other AS picking their nose. These guys cranked all night both Friday and Saturday. In their defense, I probably slowed them down because they had to double and triple check my numbers."
AS: "But still, okay it takes a few minutes to check numbers, but not 10 hours! Tell me what took so long. What if I would have said Friday afternoon we needed this book by Saturday night, you guys couldn't have done it!"
Me: "I will be honest. I don't know if you could pinpoint one thing that took us a really long time. The project as a whole just did take that much time. But the thing is, and I fully subscribe to this phenomenon that if you had asked us to get it to you by Saturday night, somehow we would have done it. We would have made it happen."
He calmed down a little and we discussed a few more things and then I said, "You know, I put you down to review me because I know you will give me an honest review and that's what I want. It floats around the office that you can be really tough, and also that you are the smartest banker here (and he really is I am not just saying that) and I am willing to make every effort to be on your team, because I know I will learn a lot."
Monday-- We had a client meeting at 9:00 in the morning. I had to be here at 7:15 to set up the projector and get a back-up laptop in case something went wrong. I also had to print all the documents for the meeting. It doesn't take long to do that secretary stuff, but we also have a video conference from 8:15 to 8:45 every Monday morning.
Clients roll in and it is the CFO and COO of a publicly traded company. From our team we had 2 MDs, 2 AS, 1 AN, and me. This company is struggling and has turned to us to advise them. They have a couple choices: (1) they can go-it-alone and go private. (2) They can be acquired by another company. Obviously if we as bankers can find a buyer, we will earn more money. Obviously if we find a buyer who will buy the company at a high price compared to the shares of the company we will make even more.
You could kind of tell the distress of the management team. As they presented their financials and also their operations, you could tell they wanted to be optimistic, but also didn't want to lead us on. The MDs sure know their stuff. I was impressed at how well versed the MDs were in all the current activity in the space. I was soaking it up and taking tons of notes. I knew that what they were saying would eventually end up in a book, and I was going to be working on that book.
The meeting lasted about 2 hours. After the meeting the management left and we discussed strategy and valuation and fees. Where we go from here is the MDs have to convince the Board of Directors tomorrow to go private or be bought out. If the board is on board then this transaction assuming we can find buyers, will take until about October. Most of the labor is front loaded, and where I can see the rest of my internship being spent. That is, we will be presenting, "Teasers" which are presentations used to tease and interest buyers into bidding on the company. I think what makes me laugh the most about this job is the art behind it. We just got done explaining to management how crappy their company is. Now we get to turn around and explain how awesome their company is to potential buyers.
Tuesday-- All we did all day was work on this book for the presentation tomorrow. let me explain one assignment to you that took 3-4 hours. I hate how long it takes me to find information. I had to spread a transaction comp. A transaction comp is what multiples were used when a certain merger, acquisition a "transaction" took place. Here are the field I needed in this spread: Acquirer, Target, Date Announced, Date completed, transaction amount (how much the deal cost) equity value (usually the same as the transaction amount unless debt was used as well), LTM Revenue LTM = Last twelve months, LTM EBITDA, FTM (future...) Revenue, and FTM EBITDA. EBITDA mean Earnings before interest and tax and depreciation and amortization. Seems pretty simple look in the 10Qs and 10Ks for this stuff.
Here is where the problem starts. In Feb 2008 the target company sold or divested a section of their business. So I had to go back and find out how much that company generated from that business. That is, I had to look over 200 pages for a sentence that simply said, "This portion of our business accounted for 60% of our revenue in this quarter." And, yes it was quarterly that I was looking for, not annually. Here is what I loved about the whole process. It took some thinking! But I got it. I found all the information. I always wondered in class back at school how I was ever going to remember this accounting or finance stuff, but in the moment, I knew exactly what I was looking for and it was like second nature. It is also amazing how tedious the process is. I mean, in my mind I am thinking, "lets just find out how much they made in revenue and take off 10%" No way! That would never float, you always have to consider every detail and be perfect and prove it when someone calls you on it, because they will!
I also helped out with some other things on the book and spread some more comps, but we got the book off tonight at a decent hour, 11:00.
Reviews are coming up and it will be interested to here what they think of me. I have a good feeling things will go well. I am sure there are things I need to work on. I am hoping things are transparent and clear. My biggest fear is being led into a false sense of security thinking everyone really likes me, but in the end not get the offer. I am also worried that reviews will be tough in that the market is really struggling right now. Recruiters will have to be tough, and just "okay" interns won't cut it.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Burning the Midnight Oil
Friday 9:00 a.m. - 2:30 a.m.
Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 1:30 a.m.
Things have been really busy, and I feel bad for not keeping up on my blog daily because there are so many minute details that would be important to include in the blog that over time I tend to forget because I get so busy doing other things.
Let me start by explaining that I have a routine each morning. For those of you who know me well know that I am kind of neat freak. Well, when things get really busy at nights I don't have time straghten papers and organize my desk. I usually end up cleaning up the aftermath the next morning.
I get in and I start deleting unimportant email. Twice I have exceeded the limit on email capacity. We only get so much storage and it builds up fast. After I go through prior day emails, I clean up and straighten my desk. Junk papers that are old copies, have the latest and greatest in front of me. I then like to read a little bit of the financial news. Most people are just showing up about 9:30 - 10:00 things don't really get humming until about 11:00.
In the afternoon I double checked my comps that I had spread and then met up with an associate so he could check them too. The most frustrating thing was that I waled away from my desk thinking, "okay, I think this time I have it. I have double checked my numbers and am good to go." When I met with the aasociate he found a couple of errors.
Right now we are working on a presentation that is due Monday. We are presenting an M&A model to the management team of a public company. On Wednesday we will present to the Board of Directors. Apparently the Board is anxious to get this process underway and there shouldn't be too much selling that the MDs have to do. Once the Board approves our plan, we start looking for buyers. One buyer has already shown interest. The senior bankers will determine the value of the interest and who knows, I might get to be apart of the M&A process from start to finish in my summer internship. It looks like this could be a fast process.
Saturday I came in and worked with the analyst on the presentation. Here is what I had to do: (1) make a slide that showed the targets top 10 shareholders and top 10 institutional shareholders (2) then I had to look through quarterly press releases to find what the company's outlook was on revenue. I took the information I found there, coupled with the actual revenue results and made a graph for the presentation.
After that, I had to find information on about 15 companies for comparable analysis. The metrics I was searching for were: '08E Revenue, '08E EBITDA, '08E Gross Margin and Operating Margin, Market Cap, Enterprise Value, Cash, Debt. So I searched through research reports, and also used a database called factset. I got the numbers, plugged them in, and reported to the analyst. Here is where the frustration occured. I really wanted to face the analyst flawless. It builds the trust I want analysts to have with me. I checked and rechecked both formatting and numbers. I thought I was looking pretty good.
So I went in and he started checking my numbers. He said, "Am I going to find any mistakes?" I said, "I hope not because I really checked all my numbers." He started going down the list checking things and come to a point, "Where did you get this number?" I was right on top of things and gave him all the information printed out and highlighted. He checked the number USING THE SAME DATABASE I USED (factset) but at a different location within the databases and the numbers were different, "Dude, all these numbers are wrong. Where did you get this information?" I was a little sutnned because it was right infront of us, highlighted. "Right here, man, I got it from the same place you did, here let me show you on Factset."
"I don't have time for this. You gotta get your numbers right."
"I want nothing more than to get my numbers right, but if they are not right where I found them, what makes them right where you pulled them if they are from the same database?"
"Just pull them from here from now on."
And off I went. It's frustrating becasue I did this exact thing for a analyst 2 weeks ago and he sent me to the location on Factset that the other analyst was saying was wrong. How am I suppose to know what to use? Now instead of keeping track of where to find the information, I additionally have to keep track of who I am looking for and where they prefer the numbers to come from. If you have ever read Monkey Business, you know as I now know with a certainty that some of this stuff is ridiculous.
We continued to work all night, he would give me tasks, I would return with results. I would watch him plug away at a model and I realized how tedious you have to be. Management gave us numbers and we had to take those numbers and their model and manually plug into excel and replicate what they gave us. I foud myself going back and forth between research, the comparables 10Ks and 10Qs and excel and powerpoint.
Something else I want to mention is most of what we do is already there for us. I know that sounds vague, but let me explain. Its not like the AS approaches us and asks us to build a 40 page deck from scratch. What usually happens is the AS gives us guidance by say, "A projected name Such-and-Such once did something like this, see if you can find it." Then we use that outline. Same thing with modeling. Emails are sent throughout the whole office sometimes that say, "Anybody know where I can find an M&A model with multiple acquirors?" And then someone responds with, "Yeah, check this folder." So I ask myself, reflecting back on what I thought about banking, "what do bankers spend their time on if they are not constantly building things from the ground up?" The answer: fine tweeking and updating. At least at the analyst level, and at least at this office. Not much is spent on the finance.
For example, this is kind of funny. This AS and AN have been working on a Accretion / Dilution model and the results showed all the companies being dilutive. I hear the analyst ask the associate, "Why are all of them dilutive?" The associates response was classic, "Oh, I don't know thats weird [long pause] anyway, we need to make it look like this..." I said in my mind, "Are you kidding? These guys are supposed to know everything, but they can't figure out why every company is dilutive? That seems pretty basic. I picked the wrong major. I should have done graphic design."
Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 1:30 a.m.
Things have been really busy, and I feel bad for not keeping up on my blog daily because there are so many minute details that would be important to include in the blog that over time I tend to forget because I get so busy doing other things.
Let me start by explaining that I have a routine each morning. For those of you who know me well know that I am kind of neat freak. Well, when things get really busy at nights I don't have time straghten papers and organize my desk. I usually end up cleaning up the aftermath the next morning.
I get in and I start deleting unimportant email. Twice I have exceeded the limit on email capacity. We only get so much storage and it builds up fast. After I go through prior day emails, I clean up and straighten my desk. Junk papers that are old copies, have the latest and greatest in front of me. I then like to read a little bit of the financial news. Most people are just showing up about 9:30 - 10:00 things don't really get humming until about 11:00.
In the afternoon I double checked my comps that I had spread and then met up with an associate so he could check them too. The most frustrating thing was that I waled away from my desk thinking, "okay, I think this time I have it. I have double checked my numbers and am good to go." When I met with the aasociate he found a couple of errors.
Right now we are working on a presentation that is due Monday. We are presenting an M&A model to the management team of a public company. On Wednesday we will present to the Board of Directors. Apparently the Board is anxious to get this process underway and there shouldn't be too much selling that the MDs have to do. Once the Board approves our plan, we start looking for buyers. One buyer has already shown interest. The senior bankers will determine the value of the interest and who knows, I might get to be apart of the M&A process from start to finish in my summer internship. It looks like this could be a fast process.
Saturday I came in and worked with the analyst on the presentation. Here is what I had to do: (1) make a slide that showed the targets top 10 shareholders and top 10 institutional shareholders (2) then I had to look through quarterly press releases to find what the company's outlook was on revenue. I took the information I found there, coupled with the actual revenue results and made a graph for the presentation.
After that, I had to find information on about 15 companies for comparable analysis. The metrics I was searching for were: '08E Revenue, '08E EBITDA, '08E Gross Margin and Operating Margin, Market Cap, Enterprise Value, Cash, Debt. So I searched through research reports, and also used a database called factset. I got the numbers, plugged them in, and reported to the analyst. Here is where the frustration occured. I really wanted to face the analyst flawless. It builds the trust I want analysts to have with me. I checked and rechecked both formatting and numbers. I thought I was looking pretty good.
So I went in and he started checking my numbers. He said, "Am I going to find any mistakes?" I said, "I hope not because I really checked all my numbers." He started going down the list checking things and come to a point, "Where did you get this number?" I was right on top of things and gave him all the information printed out and highlighted. He checked the number USING THE SAME DATABASE I USED (factset) but at a different location within the databases and the numbers were different, "Dude, all these numbers are wrong. Where did you get this information?" I was a little sutnned because it was right infront of us, highlighted. "Right here, man, I got it from the same place you did, here let me show you on Factset."
"I don't have time for this. You gotta get your numbers right."
"I want nothing more than to get my numbers right, but if they are not right where I found them, what makes them right where you pulled them if they are from the same database?"
"Just pull them from here from now on."
And off I went. It's frustrating becasue I did this exact thing for a analyst 2 weeks ago and he sent me to the location on Factset that the other analyst was saying was wrong. How am I suppose to know what to use? Now instead of keeping track of where to find the information, I additionally have to keep track of who I am looking for and where they prefer the numbers to come from. If you have ever read Monkey Business, you know as I now know with a certainty that some of this stuff is ridiculous.
We continued to work all night, he would give me tasks, I would return with results. I would watch him plug away at a model and I realized how tedious you have to be. Management gave us numbers and we had to take those numbers and their model and manually plug into excel and replicate what they gave us. I foud myself going back and forth between research, the comparables 10Ks and 10Qs and excel and powerpoint.
Something else I want to mention is most of what we do is already there for us. I know that sounds vague, but let me explain. Its not like the AS approaches us and asks us to build a 40 page deck from scratch. What usually happens is the AS gives us guidance by say, "A projected name Such-and-Such once did something like this, see if you can find it." Then we use that outline. Same thing with modeling. Emails are sent throughout the whole office sometimes that say, "Anybody know where I can find an M&A model with multiple acquirors?" And then someone responds with, "Yeah, check this folder." So I ask myself, reflecting back on what I thought about banking, "what do bankers spend their time on if they are not constantly building things from the ground up?" The answer: fine tweeking and updating. At least at the analyst level, and at least at this office. Not much is spent on the finance.
For example, this is kind of funny. This AS and AN have been working on a Accretion / Dilution model and the results showed all the companies being dilutive. I hear the analyst ask the associate, "Why are all of them dilutive?" The associates response was classic, "Oh, I don't know thats weird [long pause] anyway, we need to make it look like this..." I said in my mind, "Are you kidding? These guys are supposed to know everything, but they can't figure out why every company is dilutive? That seems pretty basic. I picked the wrong major. I should have done graphic design."
Friday, July 11, 2008
Submitting Reviews
Thursday 9:00 a.m.-2:30 a.m.
Today was the day I submitted reviews to the recruiters for who I wanted to review me. We were supposed to give names of 4-6 bankers we have worked with. I ended up submitting all the bankers I have worked with (8 total) to review me. Even the ones that chewed me out. I am confident that the mean will be good strong reviews, but I am sure to here some feedback which is good. The last thing I want is that false impression that things are on course for a full time offer and then hear, "well we can't give you one because of this or that."
This morning was slow, and I was really hoping to not have another day like I did yesterday. I had a conference call at 11:00 a.m. and I don't say anything at all. In fact, just so the ones on the call have no idea I am there I always dial before the meeting starts to avoid the beep you hear when the meeting has started and somebody joins because then you hear the moderator say, "Who just joined?" Oh, me the intern:) Not a chance, the only one who knows I am on the call is the analyst I am working with and that is all that needs to know. I just push mute, and listen.
Around 3:00 one of the analyst cleaned out a Accretion/Dilution Model for me to re-build for practice. These things are huge and very dynamic, lots of inputs and outputs. Basically an Accretion Dilution model tells you what will happen to your Earnings Per Share (EPS) if a merger or acquisition takes place with cash, cash and stock, or just stock. The factors that are most interesting are the interest income and interest expense because that is what changes in the transaction which changes the bottom line which of course effects your EPS. I am still new to this so by all means post comments if I am wrong or if you have questions.
One thing you don't want to do is sending an email asking a simple question, and getting a return email with a movie poster of "The Rookie" with Dennis Quaid. Basically my question I could have figured out on my own. I mean, we all got a good laugh, but the reason I asked the question was becasue the analyst I asked I knew had the answer and I wouldn't have to go digging for it. I felt comfortable just throwing the question out expecting a quick return...lesson learned--as an intern, never be too comfortable.
About 7:00 work showed up! We have to throw together this presentation to the Board of a company that wants to get away from the public markets. This is the live deal I have been on, and now things are really heating up because we just received a "non-binding letter of interest" basically there is a buyer for this company (we are advising the sell side) sell side just means that--in a transaction for ownership there is a buyer, and a seller and each will have their advisors, usually investment bankers. Anyway, the buyer basically was like, "We don't want to commit to anything...but we are interested." So we have to kick it in gear. One thing that you will learn is most people would like to gravitate to the "Buy Side" because the sell side is at the mercy of to the buy side. When a buyer wants information on the target, the sell side has to get it to them and like selling anything has to make it look good.
Here is a funny story. I was asked to go pick up cigarettes for by 2 analysts yesterday. They gave me some money and told me to go to the 7-11. I have pretty good relationship with both and did have a problem, but when I got there and realized what I was doing I said to myself, "I need to avoid all appearence of evil. I am not doing this again." So I got to thinking and this is what I did...I went back in the office and one of the analysts who had not purchased the cigarettes said, "Man, you guys! You sent to religious intern to do your dirty work." So I said to the two analyst. "You know, buying cigarettes makes me look like I am in favor of your nasty habits. Here's the deal--I will give you these cigarettes if you come to church with me on Sunday." They kind of looked at me. One said, "You can keep the cigarettes." The other one was like, "Okay, I will come." So some good came out of it and I didn't feel like I had to walk on eggshells because they knew what they were asking, and it was only fair to return the request. Needless to say, I have a pack of Marlboro Lights if anyone wants to come to church:)
Today was the day I submitted reviews to the recruiters for who I wanted to review me. We were supposed to give names of 4-6 bankers we have worked with. I ended up submitting all the bankers I have worked with (8 total) to review me. Even the ones that chewed me out. I am confident that the mean will be good strong reviews, but I am sure to here some feedback which is good. The last thing I want is that false impression that things are on course for a full time offer and then hear, "well we can't give you one because of this or that."
This morning was slow, and I was really hoping to not have another day like I did yesterday. I had a conference call at 11:00 a.m. and I don't say anything at all. In fact, just so the ones on the call have no idea I am there I always dial before the meeting starts to avoid the beep you hear when the meeting has started and somebody joins because then you hear the moderator say, "Who just joined?" Oh, me the intern:) Not a chance, the only one who knows I am on the call is the analyst I am working with and that is all that needs to know. I just push mute, and listen.
Around 3:00 one of the analyst cleaned out a Accretion/Dilution Model for me to re-build for practice. These things are huge and very dynamic, lots of inputs and outputs. Basically an Accretion Dilution model tells you what will happen to your Earnings Per Share (EPS) if a merger or acquisition takes place with cash, cash and stock, or just stock. The factors that are most interesting are the interest income and interest expense because that is what changes in the transaction which changes the bottom line which of course effects your EPS. I am still new to this so by all means post comments if I am wrong or if you have questions.
One thing you don't want to do is sending an email asking a simple question, and getting a return email with a movie poster of "The Rookie" with Dennis Quaid. Basically my question I could have figured out on my own. I mean, we all got a good laugh, but the reason I asked the question was becasue the analyst I asked I knew had the answer and I wouldn't have to go digging for it. I felt comfortable just throwing the question out expecting a quick return...lesson learned--as an intern, never be too comfortable.
About 7:00 work showed up! We have to throw together this presentation to the Board of a company that wants to get away from the public markets. This is the live deal I have been on, and now things are really heating up because we just received a "non-binding letter of interest" basically there is a buyer for this company (we are advising the sell side) sell side just means that--in a transaction for ownership there is a buyer, and a seller and each will have their advisors, usually investment bankers. Anyway, the buyer basically was like, "We don't want to commit to anything...but we are interested." So we have to kick it in gear. One thing that you will learn is most people would like to gravitate to the "Buy Side" because the sell side is at the mercy of to the buy side. When a buyer wants information on the target, the sell side has to get it to them and like selling anything has to make it look good.
Here is a funny story. I was asked to go pick up cigarettes for by 2 analysts yesterday. They gave me some money and told me to go to the 7-11. I have pretty good relationship with both and did have a problem, but when I got there and realized what I was doing I said to myself, "I need to avoid all appearence of evil. I am not doing this again." So I got to thinking and this is what I did...I went back in the office and one of the analysts who had not purchased the cigarettes said, "Man, you guys! You sent to religious intern to do your dirty work." So I said to the two analyst. "You know, buying cigarettes makes me look like I am in favor of your nasty habits. Here's the deal--I will give you these cigarettes if you come to church with me on Sunday." They kind of looked at me. One said, "You can keep the cigarettes." The other one was like, "Okay, I will come." So some good came out of it and I didn't feel like I had to walk on eggshells because they knew what they were asking, and it was only fair to return the request. Needless to say, I have a pack of Marlboro Lights if anyone wants to come to church:)
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Poison Oak
Wednesday 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
So I just re-read my blog and I have to say I make a lot of typos! Almost to the point that its really distracting. I am going to do better at that.
I have poison oak. Or, at least that is what I think I have and I am not going to see an actual doctor. My insurance doesn't cover CA. It would cost out of pocket $200. I'll pass. So for the past week I have had this rash/blisters develop on my upper right arm, now it has spread to my legs and other arm. I asked around and showed some people and the verdict is poison oak. I guess it is pretty common in Silicon Valley. What is weird is that I have been to 2 parks since I have been here, but wasn't near anything but grass. I bring it up because its kind of distracting at work for me. Distracting because I itch, so if anyone has a secret remedy for this stuff let me know. I guess the oils can easily spread, and that I have to decontaminate everything. I have washed all my clothes and still it spreads. I mean, as I understand even brushing up against a desk (like the one I sit at all day) could have the oils from the plant and it can start all over. Oh well, trials make us better.
Today was a very slow, in fact somewhat wasteful day. I came in and finished up those profiles finally! Cool part? Despite the fact that the analyst I worked with sent me through the wringer, no hard feelings at all and we were able to joke around. That is one of the cool parts about banking, yeah you get yelled at, but in a couple minutes--they're over it and you are straight. I can imagine that if you are a repeated failure that you get a negative reputation and people won't want to work with you, so the goal is for me not to make the same mistakes twice!
After finishing up the profiles I was done--that was at noon. I did my rounds to all my projects. Some of the analysts were like, "shhhhhhh, don't mention that project and we won't have to work on it." So the question is why did I stay until 11:00? One of the live deals I am on just had a presentation and the associate was coming back to the office with comments tonight at 8:00. Well he never showed, and the analyst on the deal left, and told me to go home too. In my down time I read research reports (keep this on the DL, but the reports I read were for companies I held stock in) I looked at some comps to see how they were set up and I read a really cool letter. It was a highly confidential letter to a target that a PE firm was interested in an LBO. We are advising the target. I soaked it up. You know its one thing to read about this stuff on the outside like in the Wall Street Journal, its another thing to think, "Wow this it the real deal and I am on it."
So the office was pretty slow for most everyone. Tomorrow there is a bakeoff. A bakeoff is where a company in this case wants to go public and they need to choose a bank to do the underwriting. All the banks show up in their Sunday best and pitch why the firm should choose them. It would be neat if we could go watch, but we can't not even analysts are going.
So I just re-read my blog and I have to say I make a lot of typos! Almost to the point that its really distracting. I am going to do better at that.
I have poison oak. Or, at least that is what I think I have and I am not going to see an actual doctor. My insurance doesn't cover CA. It would cost out of pocket $200. I'll pass. So for the past week I have had this rash/blisters develop on my upper right arm, now it has spread to my legs and other arm. I asked around and showed some people and the verdict is poison oak. I guess it is pretty common in Silicon Valley. What is weird is that I have been to 2 parks since I have been here, but wasn't near anything but grass. I bring it up because its kind of distracting at work for me. Distracting because I itch, so if anyone has a secret remedy for this stuff let me know. I guess the oils can easily spread, and that I have to decontaminate everything. I have washed all my clothes and still it spreads. I mean, as I understand even brushing up against a desk (like the one I sit at all day) could have the oils from the plant and it can start all over. Oh well, trials make us better.
Today was a very slow, in fact somewhat wasteful day. I came in and finished up those profiles finally! Cool part? Despite the fact that the analyst I worked with sent me through the wringer, no hard feelings at all and we were able to joke around. That is one of the cool parts about banking, yeah you get yelled at, but in a couple minutes--they're over it and you are straight. I can imagine that if you are a repeated failure that you get a negative reputation and people won't want to work with you, so the goal is for me not to make the same mistakes twice!
After finishing up the profiles I was done--that was at noon. I did my rounds to all my projects. Some of the analysts were like, "shhhhhhh, don't mention that project and we won't have to work on it." So the question is why did I stay until 11:00? One of the live deals I am on just had a presentation and the associate was coming back to the office with comments tonight at 8:00. Well he never showed, and the analyst on the deal left, and told me to go home too. In my down time I read research reports (keep this on the DL, but the reports I read were for companies I held stock in) I looked at some comps to see how they were set up and I read a really cool letter. It was a highly confidential letter to a target that a PE firm was interested in an LBO. We are advising the target. I soaked it up. You know its one thing to read about this stuff on the outside like in the Wall Street Journal, its another thing to think, "Wow this it the real deal and I am on it."
So the office was pretty slow for most everyone. Tomorrow there is a bakeoff. A bakeoff is where a company in this case wants to go public and they need to choose a bank to do the underwriting. All the banks show up in their Sunday best and pitch why the firm should choose them. It would be neat if we could go watch, but we can't not even analysts are going.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Company Profiles
Monday 8:00 a.m - 4:45 a.m
Tuesday 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.
Busy Busy Busy. And boy do I have stories. Its kind of interesting...if you follow The Analyst's blog like I do, we are going through the same stuff at the same time and yet he is about to end his internship and I am just getting into mine. Even down to the type of people we are working with.
I got staffed on doing company profiles with an analyst who has been kickin' my trash. I even got the "You need to step it up" comment from him. Let me tell you the situation. And how things were handled.
We had this assignment to do 3 company profiles last tueday due this past monday...you know so 6 days. I told the analyst that I was staffed with, "Hey I am willing to come in on Independence Day and Saturday to get this done. I have no plans." Well I mentioned that to him a couple time and he didn't really push to get it done.
Then on Monday I was sitting in training and I get an email from the VP who is in charge of this, "When can I see your guys' profiles?" Two seconds later the analyst sends me an email, "I need you to leave training NOW we have 1 hour to get this to him."
So I leave and we get to cranking on them. The analyst isn't happy because he got caught no paying attention to deadlines, I am a little frustrated because I knew what was coming and didn't have any guidence on where to go.
So the VP took off Monday night and me and this analyst spent the entire night going over and over the profiles. Now, call it a weakness, but I move slow. What an analyst can do in 15 minutes takes me an hour. I don't know where to find things, like as far as research, nor do I know what kind of things to look out for.
Additionally I am staffed on live deals, and not only is this thing I am doing not live, the big picture is not even banking related. I got the "step it up call" when I had to compose some information and I wasn't finished by the time we met up again. He said, "I gave you all day to do it.."When he really only gave me an hour and 1/2.
For those of you who know me well, know that I love to argue. In this particular case, and something I am very cautious about in this internship is not arguing even though they might be wrong, just don't do it. I held my peace through ALL of his comments. It was a little discouraging to work with him because I felt like all this effort I was putting in was not only worthless, but costing him extra work. Like the net effect of me being there was a loss.
But this is what I love. He broke me down. What I mean by that is he definitely caught my laziness and pointed it out. For example, there wer numbers that I would pull and question, but then say to myself, "Well I don't where to really look for this, so I will use this unreliable resource..." And then we would get together and he would ask, "Where did you get this...oh, thats lazy." It pissed me off. So over the course of working 40 hours in 2 days, I think my level of detail has picked up, but I am no where near trustworthy, that is the analysts will always triple check my numbers.
Let me cover 2 more things
(1) One of the things I love about this office it the exposure to MDs. I have had a couple meetings with MDs. I had a really cool phone conference yesterday. It was the MD who was driving somewhere, another MD, the CEO and CFO of a public company, an analyst and an associate and myself. What was going down? This company is in trouble and want the bank to advise. The phone call was to get the go ahead to present to the board as well as talk about fees, So here I am listening to these MDs negotiate. Boy do they have to be salespeople! The CEO and CFO were giving them grief and the MDs were standing their ground. I think what is really cool is the fact that I, little old intern, have enough non-public material information that if I traded on it I could go to jail! I mean I know things that if investors knew would manipulate the markets.
(2) The Banking Gods do they smile upon you? For some reason when it gets late at night Excel and PowerPoint do weird things. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad. For example, I was working on something that printed out with huge font sizes, yet when I looked at the screen, they were normal and when I looked in print preview they were normal. I asked an analyst and it took him a bit, he didn't diagnose what was wrong, he just fixed the problem. At the same time I have had some things that, honestly, I don't think should have worked. Under the circumstances I got thinking and said, "I don't think what I just did should have returned that good of a result but SWEET!"
Tuesday 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.
Busy Busy Busy. And boy do I have stories. Its kind of interesting...if you follow The Analyst's blog like I do, we are going through the same stuff at the same time and yet he is about to end his internship and I am just getting into mine. Even down to the type of people we are working with.
I got staffed on doing company profiles with an analyst who has been kickin' my trash. I even got the "You need to step it up" comment from him. Let me tell you the situation. And how things were handled.
We had this assignment to do 3 company profiles last tueday due this past monday...you know so 6 days. I told the analyst that I was staffed with, "Hey I am willing to come in on Independence Day and Saturday to get this done. I have no plans." Well I mentioned that to him a couple time and he didn't really push to get it done.
Then on Monday I was sitting in training and I get an email from the VP who is in charge of this, "When can I see your guys' profiles?" Two seconds later the analyst sends me an email, "I need you to leave training NOW we have 1 hour to get this to him."
So I leave and we get to cranking on them. The analyst isn't happy because he got caught no paying attention to deadlines, I am a little frustrated because I knew what was coming and didn't have any guidence on where to go.
So the VP took off Monday night and me and this analyst spent the entire night going over and over the profiles. Now, call it a weakness, but I move slow. What an analyst can do in 15 minutes takes me an hour. I don't know where to find things, like as far as research, nor do I know what kind of things to look out for.
Additionally I am staffed on live deals, and not only is this thing I am doing not live, the big picture is not even banking related. I got the "step it up call" when I had to compose some information and I wasn't finished by the time we met up again. He said, "I gave you all day to do it.."When he really only gave me an hour and 1/2.
For those of you who know me well, know that I love to argue. In this particular case, and something I am very cautious about in this internship is not arguing even though they might be wrong, just don't do it. I held my peace through ALL of his comments. It was a little discouraging to work with him because I felt like all this effort I was putting in was not only worthless, but costing him extra work. Like the net effect of me being there was a loss.
But this is what I love. He broke me down. What I mean by that is he definitely caught my laziness and pointed it out. For example, there wer numbers that I would pull and question, but then say to myself, "Well I don't where to really look for this, so I will use this unreliable resource..." And then we would get together and he would ask, "Where did you get this...oh, thats lazy." It pissed me off. So over the course of working 40 hours in 2 days, I think my level of detail has picked up, but I am no where near trustworthy, that is the analysts will always triple check my numbers.
Let me cover 2 more things
(1) One of the things I love about this office it the exposure to MDs. I have had a couple meetings with MDs. I had a really cool phone conference yesterday. It was the MD who was driving somewhere, another MD, the CEO and CFO of a public company, an analyst and an associate and myself. What was going down? This company is in trouble and want the bank to advise. The phone call was to get the go ahead to present to the board as well as talk about fees, So here I am listening to these MDs negotiate. Boy do they have to be salespeople! The CEO and CFO were giving them grief and the MDs were standing their ground. I think what is really cool is the fact that I, little old intern, have enough non-public material information that if I traded on it I could go to jail! I mean I know things that if investors knew would manipulate the markets.
(2) The Banking Gods do they smile upon you? For some reason when it gets late at night Excel and PowerPoint do weird things. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad. For example, I was working on something that printed out with huge font sizes, yet when I looked at the screen, they were normal and when I looked in print preview they were normal. I asked an analyst and it took him a bit, he didn't diagnose what was wrong, he just fixed the problem. At the same time I have had some things that, honestly, I don't think should have worked. Under the circumstances I got thinking and said, "I don't think what I just did should have returned that good of a result but SWEET!"
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Answers to your Excel Questions
Sunday: 4:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m
I don't know why this is, I am not a major blogger, but my blogs always post to June 15 for some reason so it never automatically shows the actual time and date I blog.
I want to answer the two questions that have been posed about excel and I am sorry for getting to them so late. Here are my thoughts.
The questions revolve around how to train yourself or what functions to be proficient in. If you have had a chance to read the post I put up about the Excel Whisperer you probably salivated over the fact that he can do what he does. Basically, to master excel you need to be proficient in 3 areas (1) Navigation (2) Formulas and Formatting (3) Linking, and making your spreadsheets Dynamic.
Navigation This is the foundation for being a good analyst in Excel because this skill cuts down on time, and time is of the essence in this job. What do I mean by navigation? Know your shortcuts. Resolve NOW to never use a mouse again, and this goes for programs outside of excel, like your email box and navigating Windows XP or Vista. For example if you want to "show desktop" most of us might click the little icon in the bottom left hand corner, but did you know if you hit the windows key + D it does it for you? Those types of things are crucial. So lets role play. You are in excel and you want to auto adjust the column width. You could reach for the mouse and double click on the line separating the columns or you can stop and ask, "how would I do this without a mouse?" The ALT key is a great place to start. Ask yourself, "What am I doing to the columns? I am formatting them." So you look at the top of the tool bar and under the O in Format you see a line so you hit O..."What next?" Find the word Column because that is what you are formatting, now what? You see that auto adjust or auto fit there is an A underlined. So now you know ALT+OCA auto adjusts the column. Eventually you will memorize the lists from the ALT menu and things will be much smoother. They are pretty easy to memorize because they are somewhat mnemonic. You will also begin to notice that there are EVEN SHORTER ways to do things, for example I can't remember the long way to pull up the format cell box ALT+OC? Not Sure. I just know that if you hit CTRL+1 it pulls up the box you want. Learn to Navigate fast. One of the tendencies I have is to grab the mouse when I get flustered or things get really time sensitive. I wish I had spent even more time learning to navigate.
Formulas and Formatting. Formatting is more of a navigation thing, so I won't spend too much time on that. It is important to know how to format cells or erase grid liness or whatever. When it comes to formulas, this is what makes the Excel Whisperer so good. Learn to think, "There has to be a better way." Read the post on the Excel Whisperer. This is what I learned: If you stop, take the time to really think, you may find that you were faster even though you stopped to think. Here is a good method to use that the Excel Whisperer taught me long ago. Lets say you come to a complex issue that you think could be resolved by a formula, you just don't know where to start. (1) First take a step back and determine what your end result should look like (2) try to dumb it down a little, rather than fly off the handle and try linking a billion different spreadsheets to one location, open a new workbook and very simply try to create a smaller boiled down replica. You may only need a couple of cells. Then here is the important part, as you search possible solutions, when you discover the answer SAVE THE WORKBOOK, or more save the spreadsheet and name the Workbook, Excel Answers. When you come across another problem, open the workbook, start a new spreadsheet, solve the problem, and save the workbook. What does this do? Now you don't have to commit complicated formulas to memory. Six months from now you might come across a similar problem and say, "Wait. I have done something like this before. Ah, yes! My Excel Answers Workbook." This is what my friend has done and he has a huge portfolio of workbooks with little spreadsheets with solutions to past issues.
Dynamic Spreadsheets. This is where it gets tough for me and you may want to consult The Analyst on this. To answer the question, how do we practice modeling or building a model or how do we use excel to do financial stuff. I haven't had much practice on this yet in my internship, but I would suggest finding a model and rebuilding it. Go through it over and over again. Another thought might be to role play with real companies. Sit down at your computer and say, "I want to merge McDonald's and Burger King, what do I need to do?" When you come to questions, Google it or ask a professor. Or, "If Blackstone wanted to take Yahoo private, what would the model look like?"
The other suggestion I would make is find a textbook that comes with CDs and usually they will have a companies statements in them that the textbook company imported in excel. Those are free, already built financial statements that you can play around with and try to link together. A lot of this is easier said than done, but good for you guys for asking. I would say the reason why analysts work so late, is for these reasons; as fast as they are in excel, they probably wish they were faster, so they could go home earlier.
I hope that has been helpful, keep in mind this is just my advice. You may meet others that have better ideas.
Anyway, let me tell you about my day, because there is some funny detail! When I got in at 4:30 I quickly had to look up total share count for a company over the last 3 years for each quarter. You can find that on the first page of the SEC filings. It took 10 minutes.
I then got comments back from an analyst on the company profile I was doing. Interesting how The Analyst in his latest blog said that he has done a lot of Company Profiles, well, so have I. It must be across the board. Basically what goes into a profile is a company overview, a price volume chart of the stock, analyst recommendations from Bloomberg terminal, (Type HPQ F8 ANR and it brings up analyst recommendations for HPQ), a bio on management and board of directors, and a quick spread of some ratios like gross margin, revenue growth, etc. I am sure different coverage groups have different profile formats but that is what it is for my group.
Anyway, I got nailed in my comments for not paying attention to detail! I mean killer stuff that I should have caught, like "fro" which should have been "from" "competed" which should have been "completed" I missed some things that should have been italicized and some things that should have been bolded. I was a little embarrassed and got the old, "You need to print stuff off and proof read before you turn it in." They are right, the sad thing is The Analyst mentioned that in his blog and I failed to remember it when it came to a time I needed to print. The biggest mistake? Not being consistent on each page. I think the analyst reviewing my work would have been happier had I been consistant on each page, even if the consistancy is wrong. In most cases there is no right or wrong answer, JUST BE CONSISTANT!
Needless to say I made the changes and then printed a copy off...OOPS! found a mistake, print another copy off...OOPS! found another one! Printed a copy off. And so on and so on. I must have printed 8 different final versions before I turned in the actual final. I was pleased at this, (and I hope those doing internships as well or who are full time can appreciate this:)) after all the work and my eyes were burning from them being so dry and after spending so much time re-reading the same thing over and over and wanting to go home... I caught my last mistake...A dash, yes, a dash that had been bolded that wasn't suppose to be bolded!!!:) I was so proud. Especially because the font was size 8 which you should try some time, print a size 8 dash bolded and then unbolded and see if you can tell the difference. Instantly the tune to "Its beginning to look alot like Christmas," pops into my head except the words now say, "I'm beginning to be more like a banker...I catch mistakes on every page!" Yeah, I am probably delirious, but so happy.
Well I am looking forward to the week. I love this stuff. I love going to work everyday and figuring things out.
I don't know why this is, I am not a major blogger, but my blogs always post to June 15 for some reason so it never automatically shows the actual time and date I blog.
I want to answer the two questions that have been posed about excel and I am sorry for getting to them so late. Here are my thoughts.
The questions revolve around how to train yourself or what functions to be proficient in. If you have had a chance to read the post I put up about the Excel Whisperer you probably salivated over the fact that he can do what he does. Basically, to master excel you need to be proficient in 3 areas (1) Navigation (2) Formulas and Formatting (3) Linking, and making your spreadsheets Dynamic.
Navigation This is the foundation for being a good analyst in Excel because this skill cuts down on time, and time is of the essence in this job. What do I mean by navigation? Know your shortcuts. Resolve NOW to never use a mouse again, and this goes for programs outside of excel, like your email box and navigating Windows XP or Vista. For example if you want to "show desktop" most of us might click the little icon in the bottom left hand corner, but did you know if you hit the windows key + D it does it for you? Those types of things are crucial. So lets role play. You are in excel and you want to auto adjust the column width. You could reach for the mouse and double click on the line separating the columns or you can stop and ask, "how would I do this without a mouse?" The ALT key is a great place to start. Ask yourself, "What am I doing to the columns? I am formatting them." So you look at the top of the tool bar and under the O in Format you see a line so you hit O..."What next?" Find the word Column because that is what you are formatting, now what? You see that auto adjust or auto fit there is an A underlined. So now you know ALT+OCA auto adjusts the column. Eventually you will memorize the lists from the ALT menu and things will be much smoother. They are pretty easy to memorize because they are somewhat mnemonic. You will also begin to notice that there are EVEN SHORTER ways to do things, for example I can't remember the long way to pull up the format cell box ALT+OC? Not Sure. I just know that if you hit CTRL+1 it pulls up the box you want. Learn to Navigate fast. One of the tendencies I have is to grab the mouse when I get flustered or things get really time sensitive. I wish I had spent even more time learning to navigate.
Formulas and Formatting. Formatting is more of a navigation thing, so I won't spend too much time on that. It is important to know how to format cells or erase grid liness or whatever. When it comes to formulas, this is what makes the Excel Whisperer so good. Learn to think, "There has to be a better way." Read the post on the Excel Whisperer. This is what I learned: If you stop, take the time to really think, you may find that you were faster even though you stopped to think. Here is a good method to use that the Excel Whisperer taught me long ago. Lets say you come to a complex issue that you think could be resolved by a formula, you just don't know where to start. (1) First take a step back and determine what your end result should look like (2) try to dumb it down a little, rather than fly off the handle and try linking a billion different spreadsheets to one location, open a new workbook and very simply try to create a smaller boiled down replica. You may only need a couple of cells. Then here is the important part, as you search possible solutions, when you discover the answer SAVE THE WORKBOOK, or more save the spreadsheet and name the Workbook, Excel Answers. When you come across another problem, open the workbook, start a new spreadsheet, solve the problem, and save the workbook. What does this do? Now you don't have to commit complicated formulas to memory. Six months from now you might come across a similar problem and say, "Wait. I have done something like this before. Ah, yes! My Excel Answers Workbook." This is what my friend has done and he has a huge portfolio of workbooks with little spreadsheets with solutions to past issues.
Dynamic Spreadsheets. This is where it gets tough for me and you may want to consult The Analyst on this. To answer the question, how do we practice modeling or building a model or how do we use excel to do financial stuff. I haven't had much practice on this yet in my internship, but I would suggest finding a model and rebuilding it. Go through it over and over again. Another thought might be to role play with real companies. Sit down at your computer and say, "I want to merge McDonald's and Burger King, what do I need to do?" When you come to questions, Google it or ask a professor. Or, "If Blackstone wanted to take Yahoo private, what would the model look like?"
The other suggestion I would make is find a textbook that comes with CDs and usually they will have a companies statements in them that the textbook company imported in excel. Those are free, already built financial statements that you can play around with and try to link together. A lot of this is easier said than done, but good for you guys for asking. I would say the reason why analysts work so late, is for these reasons; as fast as they are in excel, they probably wish they were faster, so they could go home earlier.
I hope that has been helpful, keep in mind this is just my advice. You may meet others that have better ideas.
Anyway, let me tell you about my day, because there is some funny detail! When I got in at 4:30 I quickly had to look up total share count for a company over the last 3 years for each quarter. You can find that on the first page of the SEC filings. It took 10 minutes.
I then got comments back from an analyst on the company profile I was doing. Interesting how The Analyst in his latest blog said that he has done a lot of Company Profiles, well, so have I. It must be across the board. Basically what goes into a profile is a company overview, a price volume chart of the stock, analyst recommendations from Bloomberg terminal, (Type HPQ F8 ANR and it brings up analyst recommendations for HPQ), a bio on management and board of directors, and a quick spread of some ratios like gross margin, revenue growth, etc. I am sure different coverage groups have different profile formats but that is what it is for my group.
Anyway, I got nailed in my comments for not paying attention to detail! I mean killer stuff that I should have caught, like "fro" which should have been "from" "competed" which should have been "completed" I missed some things that should have been italicized and some things that should have been bolded. I was a little embarrassed and got the old, "You need to print stuff off and proof read before you turn it in." They are right, the sad thing is The Analyst mentioned that in his blog and I failed to remember it when it came to a time I needed to print. The biggest mistake? Not being consistent on each page. I think the analyst reviewing my work would have been happier had I been consistant on each page, even if the consistancy is wrong. In most cases there is no right or wrong answer, JUST BE CONSISTANT!
Needless to say I made the changes and then printed a copy off...OOPS! found a mistake, print another copy off...OOPS! found another one! Printed a copy off. And so on and so on. I must have printed 8 different final versions before I turned in the actual final. I was pleased at this, (and I hope those doing internships as well or who are full time can appreciate this:)) after all the work and my eyes were burning from them being so dry and after spending so much time re-reading the same thing over and over and wanting to go home... I caught my last mistake...A dash, yes, a dash that had been bolded that wasn't suppose to be bolded!!!:) I was so proud. Especially because the font was size 8 which you should try some time, print a size 8 dash bolded and then unbolded and see if you can tell the difference. Instantly the tune to "Its beginning to look alot like Christmas," pops into my head except the words now say, "I'm beginning to be more like a banker...I catch mistakes on every page!" Yeah, I am probably delirious, but so happy.
Well I am looking forward to the week. I love this stuff. I love going to work everyday and figuring things out.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The Candy Jar
Friday: Didn't have to Work! Yay for Independence!
Saturday: I was in the office for 30 minutes and that was it!
This is a post that is not so "business as usual" but wanted to post it to give you a feel for some ideas that you can play with in your internship.
My best friend gave me a basket full of candy and a candy jar. With regards to the jar she said, "Put this on your desk filled with candy. I know how much you love candy..."
Come to find out she is genius. It has been the best "getting to know you" tool in the tool box. The Analyst posted his Secret Sauce, and this is mine--The Candy Jar.
So initially it had candy in it and I ate it all. Took me about 3 hours to eat it all. So I had to refill it and the internship had not started yet. So I purchased these Toosie Roll Frooties. They are delicious. Don't confuse them with the bigger tootsie rolls that come in Lime and Vanilla, these are tiny little ones that come in fruit punch and smooth cherry. Google them and buy a bag if you have never tried them.
So I mixed about five flavors and put them in the jar and like a fisherman waiting for a bite they sat on my desk. At first, I was the only one consuming them. But then the magic little jar tranformed things.
A banker would come in, "Hey, could you do--what are these?"
"Oh these are frooties, you have to try them." The banker would take a handful and continue. Sometimes bankers would come in and I would say, "Have you tried these before?"
"No, what are they?"
"Try them you will like them."
You gotta keep in mind the stealth here. I didn't show up to some meeting with a bag full of these things like the bagel incident, I let the bankers come to me. The next thing you know I get some return visits.
"Dude these red ones are good."
"Good have some more! Did you try the green ones? I love the green ones. Hey, if you ever want more, you know where to come. If I am not at my desk, just take them."
What is genius about this candy jar is that bankers can't just come in and take a handful and walk out...they psychologically have to say something; spark some kind of conversation.
What I like is that bankers I have yet to meet formally will come, introduce themselves and ask if they can try some. I have yet to have an MD walk in and ask for some, but analyst to VP you bet!
The best part is seeing the side of bankers that no one gets to see--the kid-at-heart. Their little grins when I start to pour a couple in their hand. It's fun to see a banker peek his or her head in and not even have to say anything, they just smile and I know what they are thinking. I motion to them to step in and they hold out their hand.
I have it down now to where I know what flavor each banker likes particularly. So I have ventured out and will carry a couple in my pocket, and if I see they are away from their desk, I place a couple right next to their key board or on their mouse pad. Then I get the email, "Dude thanks, I was just going to come by for some."
As a disclaimer, you have to be careful, it is kind of like fishing. You can't just yank on the line at the first sign of a bite. You got to slowly and patiently reel them in. The stuff makes for good conversation. Having the jar on my desk has been key to building relationships not banking related.
So here is the idea if you consider doing something like this. #1 buy candy that is individually wrapped. No one wants t stick their and in a jar that you and all the other bankers have too. #2 Buy an assortment, not everyone likes dark chocolate miny milkey way bars. #3 Let them come to you, AND if you don't have a well established relationship yet, don't offer candy. Wait until you are at the (and this is the bet way I can describe it) "cool point"...when you know that you are cool with the banker, or wait until you have broken the ice. #4 Lastly, be careful not to become the "summer analyst with candy" you want to be known as the the one who works hard or has great modeling skills or listening skills. You would hate to have the candy be the highlight of your exposure to bankers. If you notice bankers saying, "hey candy guy!" Maybe tuck the candy away for a week or so.
Good luck!
Saturday: I was in the office for 30 minutes and that was it!
This is a post that is not so "business as usual" but wanted to post it to give you a feel for some ideas that you can play with in your internship.
My best friend gave me a basket full of candy and a candy jar. With regards to the jar she said, "Put this on your desk filled with candy. I know how much you love candy..."
Come to find out she is genius. It has been the best "getting to know you" tool in the tool box. The Analyst posted his Secret Sauce, and this is mine--The Candy Jar.
So initially it had candy in it and I ate it all. Took me about 3 hours to eat it all. So I had to refill it and the internship had not started yet. So I purchased these Toosie Roll Frooties. They are delicious. Don't confuse them with the bigger tootsie rolls that come in Lime and Vanilla, these are tiny little ones that come in fruit punch and smooth cherry. Google them and buy a bag if you have never tried them.
So I mixed about five flavors and put them in the jar and like a fisherman waiting for a bite they sat on my desk. At first, I was the only one consuming them. But then the magic little jar tranformed things.
A banker would come in, "Hey, could you do--what are these?"
"Oh these are frooties, you have to try them." The banker would take a handful and continue. Sometimes bankers would come in and I would say, "Have you tried these before?"
"No, what are they?"
"Try them you will like them."
You gotta keep in mind the stealth here. I didn't show up to some meeting with a bag full of these things like the bagel incident, I let the bankers come to me. The next thing you know I get some return visits.
"Dude these red ones are good."
"Good have some more! Did you try the green ones? I love the green ones. Hey, if you ever want more, you know where to come. If I am not at my desk, just take them."
What is genius about this candy jar is that bankers can't just come in and take a handful and walk out...they psychologically have to say something; spark some kind of conversation.
What I like is that bankers I have yet to meet formally will come, introduce themselves and ask if they can try some. I have yet to have an MD walk in and ask for some, but analyst to VP you bet!
The best part is seeing the side of bankers that no one gets to see--the kid-at-heart. Their little grins when I start to pour a couple in their hand. It's fun to see a banker peek his or her head in and not even have to say anything, they just smile and I know what they are thinking. I motion to them to step in and they hold out their hand.
I have it down now to where I know what flavor each banker likes particularly. So I have ventured out and will carry a couple in my pocket, and if I see they are away from their desk, I place a couple right next to their key board or on their mouse pad. Then I get the email, "Dude thanks, I was just going to come by for some."
As a disclaimer, you have to be careful, it is kind of like fishing. You can't just yank on the line at the first sign of a bite. You got to slowly and patiently reel them in. The stuff makes for good conversation. Having the jar on my desk has been key to building relationships not banking related.
So here is the idea if you consider doing something like this. #1 buy candy that is individually wrapped. No one wants t stick their and in a jar that you and all the other bankers have too. #2 Buy an assortment, not everyone likes dark chocolate miny milkey way bars. #3 Let them come to you, AND if you don't have a well established relationship yet, don't offer candy. Wait until you are at the (and this is the bet way I can describe it) "cool point"...when you know that you are cool with the banker, or wait until you have broken the ice. #4 Lastly, be careful not to become the "summer analyst with candy" you want to be known as the the one who works hard or has great modeling skills or listening skills. You would hate to have the candy be the highlight of your exposure to bankers. If you notice bankers saying, "hey candy guy!" Maybe tuck the candy away for a week or so.
Good luck!
Thank My Lucky Stars!
Tuesday 9:00 a.m.-1:00 a.m.
Wednesday 9:00 a.m.-3:00 a.m.
Thursday 9:00 a.m.-7:30 p.m.
Wow what a week. Lots of good stuff to cover. First, I accessed this "via email" thing per a viewer's request. So you will notice to the right of the screen a link where you can get my latest blog. Honestly I don't think I am that popular to have people subscribing to my blog, but I really am glad people are reading it. Most importantly, those interested in banking because I would have died for material like this--I always have to remind myself that I need to add detail so interested future bankers know what its like.
This is going to be a long post, mostly because I have a little time to write something good. It is July 4th and I don't have to work thank goodness. But it looks like I will have to work on Sunday, maybe even Saturday. We have a deliverable we have been working on all week. The MD is going to give us some last comments Sunday night, and we have to have things looking sweet for Monday morning when the MD visits the client.
So I got staffed on this live deal (the deal I was talking about in the preceding paragraph) with an associate who is known for being difficult to wok with. I new this going in and was determined to really make sure I got on his good side. The best way to approach this guy is to be really positive (because he is not so enthusiastic) and humble. English is his second language and he makes no effort to pronunciate. Fore example, we (the analyst and I) threw together the shell (the shell is exactly that, its like the skeleton for the presentation, the outline without any specific detail) for the presentation on Monday. As the Associate went through the slides and made comments he mumbled everything. I wish you could audibly hear me reenact this. The analyst was frivolously taking notes, and from time to time would ask questions.
This in one guy you don't want to ask dumb questions to. At one point he raised his voice to the analyst and said, "Read the damn slides, Q!" All the analyst was asking for was clarification on what slides he wanted first.
For most of the interactions with the Associate, I would sit back and observe how the analyst reacted. For example one time the AS (for typing sake AS=Associate, AN=Analyst) came to us as we were working on some slides and was like, "You almost done?"
The AN said, "It will be another hour, I am on some other things too."
AS: "What? Like what?" and then he would pace in circles and just walk off without an answer.
Then the AN, AS and I went to give an update to the MD. The AS was completely different! He was nice and pronunciated well. When the MD was giving instructions on where to go the AS was all ears and just the nicest guy. It blew me away how completely different he acted.
Let me shed some light on what MDs are like, and maybe even juxtapose MDs with ASs and ANs. An analysts desk looks like crap is small and in a cube shared by other bankers. An Associate's office is small, shared and is stacked from floor to ceiling with pitchbooks, PIBs and other documents. Seriously the office of an associate are twice as messy. I can't believe they know where to find stuff. Now an MD has nothing on their desk. In our building the MDs have corner offices with a balcony. On a couple of shelves you see their trophy case, it has all the tombstones customized by each particular deal. For example, you may have seen collectors items that are clear plastic or glass cubes with a 3D image laser cut into the center...image about 100 of those in all shapes and sizes with company names and deal totals lasered into them. That is the shelf of the MD.
We sat down in this MDs office and he had the deck of slides we had been working on. He just started talking about how he envisioned the presentation looking. The three of us frantically took notes. I glanced at the MDs copy--he hadn't even looked at it. At the end of the meeting as me and the AN were walking back to our desks I could tell he was frustrated. I asked why and he said, "The MD basically just told us that our first version you and I put together is the way he wants it." Up to that point me and this AN spent hours reworking the slides to the taste of the AS and in 2 seconds we were back to our first version. Another interesting point to make is that we had scheduled to meet with the MD 3 different times and when we finally met with him, the meeting lasted 5 minutes.
Wednesday morning I get to the office and the AS come approaches me and he is pissed! He looks at me and says, "Why did you delete the folders?"
I said, "I am sorry, I don't know what you are referring to?"
"Someone deleted the Software and Solar folders."
I said, "Was it me? Is that why you are asking? Because I really don't recall doing something that blatant."
He just walked away. A couple hours later all the summer interns got an email saying, "We gave you a training in drive management and now someone has deleted the entire software and solar folders. IT is trying to recover the folders. If you need another lesson in drive management we need to talk."
As I pondered how serious this is, I realized that it takes a conscience effort to delete these folders because you have to click, "Do you really want to delete these folders?" I am 99% positive it wasn't me, in fact I was a little disappointed to see that only summer interns got the email. I know the likelihood of it being an intern is high, but with how fast I have seen some analysts whipping through the drives, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had inadvertently done it. Lesson: DON'T DELETE SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T CREATE
The longest day thus far has been Wednesday. This was the first time I really had to do a juggling act. When things got really difficult to manage I had the analysts duke it out. For example-one analyst said, "Hey how soon will you be done with what I sent?" I responded, "Well I am working on some slides that we need to have done tonight."
AN(1): "Well I would really like to get this done before the weekend, its due Monday." So I turned to the other AN(2) who happens to sit close to AN(1) and said,
Me: "I know we need this done tonight and I am willing to stay late to get both done. (And then turning to speak to both of them) I am not familiar with how to prioritize these assignments so what do you guys think?" Then they talked it over and my priority was set.
Not only did I finish both but another assignment surfaced and the AN(3) wanted me to spread some comps. So I stayed late to get all of it done. The truth is I had in my mind the correct prioritization--I just wanted that clear in the ANs' minds so that I wouldn't overpromise and underperform.
I am going to try to be better at being more specific about what I do all day. The only way I can do that is if I write everyday. Its tough because I get home late, and this post that I am typing took 1 hour. So to stay up an additional hour kills me. But this weekend I will really think of some valuable stuff to post. I will even try to describe what is going on with the deals I am on without breaking confidentiality. Hope everyone has a good 4th of July!
Wednesday 9:00 a.m.-3:00 a.m.
Thursday 9:00 a.m.-7:30 p.m.
Wow what a week. Lots of good stuff to cover. First, I accessed this "via email" thing per a viewer's request. So you will notice to the right of the screen a link where you can get my latest blog. Honestly I don't think I am that popular to have people subscribing to my blog, but I really am glad people are reading it. Most importantly, those interested in banking because I would have died for material like this--I always have to remind myself that I need to add detail so interested future bankers know what its like.
This is going to be a long post, mostly because I have a little time to write something good. It is July 4th and I don't have to work thank goodness. But it looks like I will have to work on Sunday, maybe even Saturday. We have a deliverable we have been working on all week. The MD is going to give us some last comments Sunday night, and we have to have things looking sweet for Monday morning when the MD visits the client.
So I got staffed on this live deal (the deal I was talking about in the preceding paragraph) with an associate who is known for being difficult to wok with. I new this going in and was determined to really make sure I got on his good side. The best way to approach this guy is to be really positive (because he is not so enthusiastic) and humble. English is his second language and he makes no effort to pronunciate. Fore example, we (the analyst and I) threw together the shell (the shell is exactly that, its like the skeleton for the presentation, the outline without any specific detail) for the presentation on Monday. As the Associate went through the slides and made comments he mumbled everything. I wish you could audibly hear me reenact this. The analyst was frivolously taking notes, and from time to time would ask questions.
This in one guy you don't want to ask dumb questions to. At one point he raised his voice to the analyst and said, "Read the damn slides, Q!" All the analyst was asking for was clarification on what slides he wanted first.
For most of the interactions with the Associate, I would sit back and observe how the analyst reacted. For example one time the AS (for typing sake AS=Associate, AN=Analyst) came to us as we were working on some slides and was like, "You almost done?"
The AN said, "It will be another hour, I am on some other things too."
AS: "What? Like what?" and then he would pace in circles and just walk off without an answer.
Then the AN, AS and I went to give an update to the MD. The AS was completely different! He was nice and pronunciated well. When the MD was giving instructions on where to go the AS was all ears and just the nicest guy. It blew me away how completely different he acted.
Let me shed some light on what MDs are like, and maybe even juxtapose MDs with ASs and ANs. An analysts desk looks like crap is small and in a cube shared by other bankers. An Associate's office is small, shared and is stacked from floor to ceiling with pitchbooks, PIBs and other documents. Seriously the office of an associate are twice as messy. I can't believe they know where to find stuff. Now an MD has nothing on their desk. In our building the MDs have corner offices with a balcony. On a couple of shelves you see their trophy case, it has all the tombstones customized by each particular deal. For example, you may have seen collectors items that are clear plastic or glass cubes with a 3D image laser cut into the center...image about 100 of those in all shapes and sizes with company names and deal totals lasered into them. That is the shelf of the MD.
We sat down in this MDs office and he had the deck of slides we had been working on. He just started talking about how he envisioned the presentation looking. The three of us frantically took notes. I glanced at the MDs copy--he hadn't even looked at it. At the end of the meeting as me and the AN were walking back to our desks I could tell he was frustrated. I asked why and he said, "The MD basically just told us that our first version you and I put together is the way he wants it." Up to that point me and this AN spent hours reworking the slides to the taste of the AS and in 2 seconds we were back to our first version. Another interesting point to make is that we had scheduled to meet with the MD 3 different times and when we finally met with him, the meeting lasted 5 minutes.
Wednesday morning I get to the office and the AS come approaches me and he is pissed! He looks at me and says, "Why did you delete the folders?"
I said, "I am sorry, I don't know what you are referring to?"
"Someone deleted the Software and Solar folders."
I said, "Was it me? Is that why you are asking? Because I really don't recall doing something that blatant."
He just walked away. A couple hours later all the summer interns got an email saying, "We gave you a training in drive management and now someone has deleted the entire software and solar folders. IT is trying to recover the folders. If you need another lesson in drive management we need to talk."
As I pondered how serious this is, I realized that it takes a conscience effort to delete these folders because you have to click, "Do you really want to delete these folders?" I am 99% positive it wasn't me, in fact I was a little disappointed to see that only summer interns got the email. I know the likelihood of it being an intern is high, but with how fast I have seen some analysts whipping through the drives, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had inadvertently done it. Lesson: DON'T DELETE SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T CREATE
The longest day thus far has been Wednesday. This was the first time I really had to do a juggling act. When things got really difficult to manage I had the analysts duke it out. For example-one analyst said, "Hey how soon will you be done with what I sent?" I responded, "Well I am working on some slides that we need to have done tonight."
AN(1): "Well I would really like to get this done before the weekend, its due Monday." So I turned to the other AN(2) who happens to sit close to AN(1) and said,
Me: "I know we need this done tonight and I am willing to stay late to get both done. (And then turning to speak to both of them) I am not familiar with how to prioritize these assignments so what do you guys think?" Then they talked it over and my priority was set.
Not only did I finish both but another assignment surfaced and the AN(3) wanted me to spread some comps. So I stayed late to get all of it done. The truth is I had in my mind the correct prioritization--I just wanted that clear in the ANs' minds so that I wouldn't overpromise and underperform.
I am going to try to be better at being more specific about what I do all day. The only way I can do that is if I write everyday. Its tough because I get home late, and this post that I am typing took 1 hour. So to stay up an additional hour kills me. But this weekend I will really think of some valuable stuff to post. I will even try to describe what is going on with the deals I am on without breaking confidentiality. Hope everyone has a good 4th of July!
Don't Bring Bagels
Monday 8:00 a.m.-12:30 a.m.
Monday morning we have meeting with all the Tech and Media in NY and CA. The way it is set up is with a webcam, so that we can see them and they can see us. One of the interns (bless his heart) brought bagels in to the meeting, and not in an interrupting manner but in kind of a peculiar manner (the meeting had yet to start, but all the MDs were there) offered bagels all around. Now I completely understand his motives-wants to succeed be proactive and be a team player, but it kind of came off embarrassing to the rest of us. All I want to say is there is a time and a place and a way to go about extraordinary jestures, and that was not it. Be a little bit more discrete.
I am now staffed on 2 live, confidential deals. So confidencial that I guess I am not even suppose to talk about them with other bankers around the office. For one of them this morning I had to make a PIB (Publice Information Book). You see these things all over the office. Every deal starts with a PIB. What goes in PIB? It was super easy, and took maybe 15 minutes to make.
First you have a title page and table of contents. Next you have a company overview. This isn't an overview that you have to concoct or summarize, you find the overview on Hoovers or VentureSource or OneSource. Print it off, and put in separaters. Next section is the 8K, 10Q, and 10K print all of it. Next section is market research on the company. So you will go to Thomson Financial and find a bank that covers the company, print off a couple of those and throw it in the PIB. Next Section is Call transcripts. Those are the Conference calls from management that have been typed up. The might be on earnings or mergers, stuff like that. Lastly we put in a new run, all the articles that have been publicized within the past few years. Thats it, you got yourself a PIB.
Later on in the afternoon the other live deal I am on had this massive spreadsheet that I had to go through with an analyst and cell by cell count "1 of 14" or "3 of 12" We had to separate the 3's from the 12's and sum all the 3's or whatever. Well there were over 2000 rows, and I wasn't about to do this with out consulting a friend from back home who we refer to as the excel whisperer. The kid is genius, and also not interested in banking at all:) I call him up and within 3 mintues he sends me a spreadsheet with the exact formulas we need to just click and drag the worksheet. When I presented this to the analyst I was working with he was stunned. He said, "How did you do this?" I explained how I had a friend back home...he said, "Your friend has a job if he wants it." I laughed, and told the analyst about my friend. All I can say is this friend saved my butt. Hopefully I can pay him back somehow. He saved us about 6 hours worth of work.
A couple of us caught dinner and then I visited all the analysts I work with on the four deals (2 live 2 not live) that I have been working on. They didn't have much to give me at the time, but around 9:00 we had to turn some comments (basically that means make the corrections from the sr. banker) on a deck of slides for the same deal I made the PIB for. It didn't take long and I took my time because I knew there was nothing left for me to do for the rest of the night. I popped in my headphones and got to cracking. I ended up doing a couple other miscellaneous things around the office, clean my desk, send a couple of emails, etc. I left around 12:30 after checking in with all the analyst I have been working with. I put up a little bit of a fight to help in anyway because usually they say, "Oh, just go home." But I also don't overdue and recognize when my being there will slow them down.
Finally, I just want to mention that I attempt to pay attention to detail all day, but when it comes to my blog I don't care so much. Hopefully my sentences are readable and my errors are few because I am not going to correct them.
Monday morning we have meeting with all the Tech and Media in NY and CA. The way it is set up is with a webcam, so that we can see them and they can see us. One of the interns (bless his heart) brought bagels in to the meeting, and not in an interrupting manner but in kind of a peculiar manner (the meeting had yet to start, but all the MDs were there) offered bagels all around. Now I completely understand his motives-wants to succeed be proactive and be a team player, but it kind of came off embarrassing to the rest of us. All I want to say is there is a time and a place and a way to go about extraordinary jestures, and that was not it. Be a little bit more discrete.
I am now staffed on 2 live, confidential deals. So confidencial that I guess I am not even suppose to talk about them with other bankers around the office. For one of them this morning I had to make a PIB (Publice Information Book). You see these things all over the office. Every deal starts with a PIB. What goes in PIB? It was super easy, and took maybe 15 minutes to make.
First you have a title page and table of contents. Next you have a company overview. This isn't an overview that you have to concoct or summarize, you find the overview on Hoovers or VentureSource or OneSource. Print it off, and put in separaters. Next section is the 8K, 10Q, and 10K print all of it. Next section is market research on the company. So you will go to Thomson Financial and find a bank that covers the company, print off a couple of those and throw it in the PIB. Next Section is Call transcripts. Those are the Conference calls from management that have been typed up. The might be on earnings or mergers, stuff like that. Lastly we put in a new run, all the articles that have been publicized within the past few years. Thats it, you got yourself a PIB.
Later on in the afternoon the other live deal I am on had this massive spreadsheet that I had to go through with an analyst and cell by cell count "1 of 14" or "3 of 12" We had to separate the 3's from the 12's and sum all the 3's or whatever. Well there were over 2000 rows, and I wasn't about to do this with out consulting a friend from back home who we refer to as the excel whisperer. The kid is genius, and also not interested in banking at all:) I call him up and within 3 mintues he sends me a spreadsheet with the exact formulas we need to just click and drag the worksheet. When I presented this to the analyst I was working with he was stunned. He said, "How did you do this?" I explained how I had a friend back home...he said, "Your friend has a job if he wants it." I laughed, and told the analyst about my friend. All I can say is this friend saved my butt. Hopefully I can pay him back somehow. He saved us about 6 hours worth of work.
A couple of us caught dinner and then I visited all the analysts I work with on the four deals (2 live 2 not live) that I have been working on. They didn't have much to give me at the time, but around 9:00 we had to turn some comments (basically that means make the corrections from the sr. banker) on a deck of slides for the same deal I made the PIB for. It didn't take long and I took my time because I knew there was nothing left for me to do for the rest of the night. I popped in my headphones and got to cracking. I ended up doing a couple other miscellaneous things around the office, clean my desk, send a couple of emails, etc. I left around 12:30 after checking in with all the analyst I have been working with. I put up a little bit of a fight to help in anyway because usually they say, "Oh, just go home." But I also don't overdue and recognize when my being there will slow them down.
Finally, I just want to mention that I attempt to pay attention to detail all day, but when it comes to my blog I don't care so much. Hopefully my sentences are readable and my errors are few because I am not going to correct them.
The Weekend
First I would like to respond to a question that was posed: "How difficult is it to get my foot through the door to become a full-time analyst in a bulge-bracket investment bank in California when I go to an east coast target school? I want to eventually work full-time in California, but it seems that none of the regional bulge-bracket banks in the west coast recruit at my school."
First, I think the plus is that you are going to a target school. You can use that to lever into a west coast bank. Second, if you know the game theory behind recruiting, you might see why they don't come and recruit at your school.
Here is the theory: The bulge banks in NY have first pickings, or I should say what most consider "cream of the crop" candidates will want to go to NY. If a satellite office investment bank, say Morgan Stanley, comes from Palo Alto to recruit at Harvard, I can imagine the turn out to be slim. You also have to consider that out west bankers want their alma mater and so recruting primarily takes place locally.
So back to the original question, how do you get in? I would suggest doing a little leg work. Fly out on your own dime and meet with all the banks in CA. Most students tend to make trips to NY (at least from my school), but I imagine a satellite office would be more receptive. Let them know the reasons why you want to work on the west coast, because what you are giving up is front line action that cannot be obtained anywhere else but Wall Street.
Lastly make it a point with your recruiter that you want to go west coast. If all you can get is an internship or full time with a bank in NY, take it, and use the offer to come out west. The way I got into this bank on the west coast was actually kind of unique. I did all my leg work in NY. But I did not get one interview with a bank in NY and actually interviewed with all west coast offices. Over the phone, my interviewer asked me, "What are your choices for offices?" I said, "I did a lot of leg work in NY and I know a few bankers there, but I would not be opposed to California, or Dallas, or Chicago." The next thing I knew I had a final round interview in CA. So I hope that helps. Anyone who wants more clarification, just ask in a comment, and I will try my best to answer it.
As for this weekend. Interesting, I went into the office this morning and didn't have anything. I was the only person there for a while. And when I say only person, I walked the entire office to make sure I could say that without lying. I then went to a BBQ 20 minutes south of San Francisco. I was so excited to not have any work. But, like an asset from the Bourne Supremecy, I get an email on my blackberry. "Meet so and so in the office at 2:00." Thats it. I had ten mintutes. So I drove back to the office and was staffed on a live deal. I am staffed on 2 live deals right now, and 2 pitches, but thankfully nothing is too pressing and I still have Sunday off. I did get to go out tonight which was relaxing.
However, in discussing the live deal, its sounds like I will be in the office on July 4th. No biggie. That is why I am here. I gotta say this though, for the record. I am loving this. Now that I am able to fit all the pieces together to some extent, I love banking. I love the fact that even though I worked 70-80 hours this week (which is lower than what I imagine is usual), I felt really balanced. I leave work happy and enter work happy. Not a day has gone by where I have said, "Oh no, I can't do this." In fact the opposite. I am really excited to go into work on Monday and see what this deal is all about.
First, I think the plus is that you are going to a target school. You can use that to lever into a west coast bank. Second, if you know the game theory behind recruiting, you might see why they don't come and recruit at your school.
Here is the theory: The bulge banks in NY have first pickings, or I should say what most consider "cream of the crop" candidates will want to go to NY. If a satellite office investment bank, say Morgan Stanley, comes from Palo Alto to recruit at Harvard, I can imagine the turn out to be slim. You also have to consider that out west bankers want their alma mater and so recruting primarily takes place locally.
So back to the original question, how do you get in? I would suggest doing a little leg work. Fly out on your own dime and meet with all the banks in CA. Most students tend to make trips to NY (at least from my school), but I imagine a satellite office would be more receptive. Let them know the reasons why you want to work on the west coast, because what you are giving up is front line action that cannot be obtained anywhere else but Wall Street.
Lastly make it a point with your recruiter that you want to go west coast. If all you can get is an internship or full time with a bank in NY, take it, and use the offer to come out west. The way I got into this bank on the west coast was actually kind of unique. I did all my leg work in NY. But I did not get one interview with a bank in NY and actually interviewed with all west coast offices. Over the phone, my interviewer asked me, "What are your choices for offices?" I said, "I did a lot of leg work in NY and I know a few bankers there, but I would not be opposed to California, or Dallas, or Chicago." The next thing I knew I had a final round interview in CA. So I hope that helps. Anyone who wants more clarification, just ask in a comment, and I will try my best to answer it.
As for this weekend. Interesting, I went into the office this morning and didn't have anything. I was the only person there for a while. And when I say only person, I walked the entire office to make sure I could say that without lying. I then went to a BBQ 20 minutes south of San Francisco. I was so excited to not have any work. But, like an asset from the Bourne Supremecy, I get an email on my blackberry. "Meet so and so in the office at 2:00." Thats it. I had ten mintutes. So I drove back to the office and was staffed on a live deal. I am staffed on 2 live deals right now, and 2 pitches, but thankfully nothing is too pressing and I still have Sunday off. I did get to go out tonight which was relaxing.
However, in discussing the live deal, its sounds like I will be in the office on July 4th. No biggie. That is why I am here. I gotta say this though, for the record. I am loving this. Now that I am able to fit all the pieces together to some extent, I love banking. I love the fact that even though I worked 70-80 hours this week (which is lower than what I imagine is usual), I felt really balanced. I leave work happy and enter work happy. Not a day has gone by where I have said, "Oh no, I can't do this." In fact the opposite. I am really excited to go into work on Monday and see what this deal is all about.
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