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?:)
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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.
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