Investment Banking in India and Abroad

Jobs & Careers
458
bournejason Says
Alrighty. And wht abt this one?


The concept of 'Analyst' is very broadly used in India. A bunch of my buddies who're ISB grads are analysts.

For an analyst who's doing US-style analyst work, the work is very very VERY mechanical and dull. The only entertainment that I've seen a lot of them deriving is from the year-end bonus (which is quickly evaporating this year!)
460

Hello People,

I'd just like to express my thoughts out loud here.

I guess that many of us have been through the entire thread (I have) and at many occasions we find lots of posts related to career guidance and other stuff not related to this thread, which is not the purpose of this thread (I guess so!).

Its better to make this thread an informative one, so when anyone comes here they don't find this thread filled with guidance related questions or something they weren't looking for. What ya'll say? There are already threads on PG which provide a lot of other info for MBA Finance & other topics. I mean,

  1. To gain a lot info on CFA this thread is really a good one
  2. For finance concepts you can refer this thread.
  3. If you wanna know why you should choose finance then this thread might help.
  4. If you are interested in Financial Risk Management visit this thread.


There is a lot of information, regarding IB, that can be gained from here. I have a suggestion that separate thread, for career guidance in IB and other information related to it, might be more appropriate. Call it "Investment Banking : Career Guidance & other information". It'd be more apt to post respective queries on that thread.

Looking forward for your responses.

(P.S. : Not offending or defending anybody. Just sharing a thought!)
461

Hey Jamiroquai & kapil.viit, thanks for supporting.

Well, like I said there is lot of info to be gained from here. So I'd like to gather some (more!) from you.

Is it true that in IB the work culture is like "dog eats dog"? I mean do colleagues help at the initial stage, when you're a "new kid in the block"? Is it more of a team work or a 1 man team? Kindly give your views on work culture of IB, at various levels.

Also, we'd like to know a day in the life of an Investment Banker from monsieur Jamiroquai. What you say, people? Looking forward to it!

Merci 😃

462

Hie Guys,

I had earlier asked about whether i should do fund accounting or not.

Well... I haven't taken d job as i had talks with some employess of it they told that it is very routin work.

Instead I (for d time being - for the sake of Cash Inflows) joined d firm where i did my interns. Well I am thinking of continuing there. I'll tell u a brief profile what my role is:

We do corporate debt funding (ticket size is small mybe 100 cr INR to 200 cr. INR). I have been given a role of handling independent small team n been given 2-3 deals to crack.

My Q is IS this going to help in the long run. (i would like to state that in the mean time my job hunt has not stopped n i'm still lookin). But still Can i carry on in this firm and get a ticket to IB or sumthing like it or will be stagnatin myself to such role only. Pls reply asap....

Thanks a ton @JAM & @Sklar for helping out on prev ocassion......:P

463
..
We do corporate debt funding (ticket size is small mybe 100 cr INR to 200 cr. INR). I have been given a role of handling independent small team n been given 2-3 deals to crack.

My Q is IS this going to help in the long run. (i would like to state that in the mean time my job hunt has not stopped n i'm still lookin).


This is where you can start - but firms that do this kind of work are many. What you need in between this and an IB job is a transformatory experience - like a client recognizing how good your work is and hiring you, or a solid MBA...
464
...
Also, we'd like to know a day in the life of an Investment Banker from monsieur Jamiroquai. What you say, people? Looking forward to it!
Merci :)


I had a phenomenal and unusual summer, so this will be a long post and will get to it over the weekend. Thought I'd post this to mention that I haven't forgotten about it.
465

please some1 explain me the following terms
1. mortgage backed securities
2. collaterized debt obligations

in as simple words as possible (do not use economics term) i so not understand what securitized mean

466

Hi Jamiroquai,

I was hoping you could answer few of my questions:

1. Roughly how many openings are there for investment banking per year for analyst position(front office) after an MBA (of course from one of the IIM ABC, these include openings in BB's, boutiques etc.)? Is it like there are very limited number of openings or otherwise(in a decent financial year)?

2. How badly is the job openings(for entry level analyst) affected during times of recession?

3. Do the analysts working in the front office always run the high risk of being fired, if they mess up a bit or during recession?

467
...
Also, we'd like to know a day in the life of an Investment Banker from monsieur Jamiroquai. What you say, people? Looking forward to it! ...


This is what a day in the life of a banker looks like on a regular day. NOT a bad day.

7:00AM: Alarm buzzes, I wake, look at the snooze button wistfully, roll off the bed onto the floor and stumble into the bathroom. I wear a watch into the shower so that I can get that extra minute of shower nap without being late.

8:AM: I'm out on the street. Manhattan is bustling with life, the streets are filling up with traffic. I used to walk thru China town and see all the shops stocking their seafood trays with live crab and fresh fish. Everyone who has a job is making their way to work. If it's too hot, a cab ride over 2 miles (~3.6km will cost you about $15)
Most people catch the subway to work. In fact, the subway train is air conditioned and very comfortable. The problem is that the subway platform is not. It's super hot and underground, so you sweat sweat sweat :-(

8:30AM: I'm at work. Open up the news to see what's going on. Look around at my bosses to see if they're calm or if they're going crazy on the phone. I take a quick look at my outlook calendar to see if there are any meetings scheduled and when. If there's something coming up real soon, I stay put. Read up on the meeting I'm supposed to have. Else, if all's well, I head to the cafeteria for some breakfast.

8:40AM: I'm back at my desk with breakfast and begin to eat. I will do lunch and dinner at the very same desk too.

8:50AM: I walk over to one of the associates / VPs of one of my current projects and begin talking to them about the assignments we're working on.

Then onwards:
I hop onto multiple conference calls during the day, sit in on multiple meetings with senior people across the bank and have multiple internal meetings to discuss the status of my assignments and the way forward on most things.

3:30 PM: If I have 5 minutes free, I get coffee. How far I can go for coffee depends on how much free time I have. Usually this is an option I didn't get an opportunity to exercise

7:00 PM: Dinner time. The only reason I realize that it's dinner time is because of the growling I hear from my belly. In NY, everyone gets thru' dinner by 8PM latest. This is the most exciting part of the evening. We use a service called SeamlessWeb to order food from any restaurant from Manhattan. Then there's a nominal work done for the next 30 minutes until food arrives. I wolf down the food and get back to work.

9:00 PM: By now I know how long this night is going to be. In a slow market like this, I'd head home in the next hour after walking around to the people I work with and checking if they need my assistance on anything. This is not the case for the coverage bankers who're slaving away till 1AM on a daily basis, building pitches. However, if there is some associate who's slogging away on an RFP or internal memo of sorts, my night is nowhere close to being done.

12:00 AM: I'm at my desk, working out some minutae on a memo. There is no end in sight to when I'm going to leave. And by no end in sight - the end comes at about 3.30 AM. By then, you know you want to go home and get some sleep. You already know you're going to get less than 3 hours of sleep... but it's just for these few days until the project is done, and another project comes by (the gap is usually, at max, an hour)
468

Awesome post, Jamiroquai!

Your eye for details and the kind of observation is just remarkable, I must say (and that's what is needed for an IB, right?).

Well, in bull market this "routine" would be totally different, eh? I just wonder how do you find time for PG!

Hey, I read somewhere on PG that work-ex in a brokerage house, before MBA, counts. It also makes a candidate preferable, in buy side as well as sell side. What would you say about it?

Anyways, thanks again for the wonderful post.

469
...
Well, in bull market this "routine" would be totally different, eh? I just wonder how do you find time for PG!

Hey, I read somewhere on PG that work-ex in a brokerage house, before MBA, counts. It also makes a candidate preferable, in buy side as well as sell side. What would you say about it? ...


I usually write responses on PG just before I go to bed. Therefore, my response writing time cuts into my sleep time. Hence, you can understand why I just don't respond to certain questions that I have said I won't respond to (i.e. look at my profile questions). It's because I could spend that time getting some sleep.

I would agree with the work-ex reference you just quoted. This holds good only for Indian candidates and that is because almost EVERY SINGLE MBA applicant is from IT or IT-related services that there's very little that differentiates one from another. A brokerage house work-ex not only is NOT IT, it also gives you an idea of financial markets.
470
Hi Jamiroquai,

I was hoping you could answer few of my questions:

1. Roughly how many openings are there for investment banking per year for analyst position(front office) after an MBA (of course from one of the IIM ABC, these include openings in BB's, boutiques etc.)? Is it like there are very limited number of openings or otherwise(in a decent financial year)?

2. How badly is the job openings(for entry level analyst) affected during times of recession?

3. Do the analysts working in the front office always run the high risk of being fired, if they mess up a bit or during recession?


Sure,
1. Very very limited. Max 40. That's a very optimistic number
2. Horribly affected. Firing is imminent
3. Both - incompetence and bad economic conditions are grounds for dismissal
471

What a horrible lifestyle that is.It is the only factor(and its side effects) that has created doubts in my mind about whether to go in this field or not.
The work hours are more reasonable in corporate development, transactions advisory services of the BIG 4 but the work involves more due diligence and working capital management than core banking i think

472

Sorry this is off-topic ..but someone pl. help me understand

Careers at a PE firm working in oil and gas sectors ?? typical projects ?? hows the work ?? im eager to work at a PE firm preferably in oil n gas sector.

OR suggest some forum to get related info.

473
please some1 explain me the following terms
1. mortgage backed securities
2. collaterized debt obligations

in as simple words as possible (do not use economics term) i so not understand what securitized mean

In most simplest terms a mortgage backed securities can be defined:
If u take a loan from a bank & will repay it & i buy ur loan from the bank at the cost it assigns to it (based on the risk of default the bank assumes on u) ....& now hold a claim on any payments u make to the bank then ur loan which is banks commodity is a MBS for me.

Now coming to Collateralized debt obligations now suppose ur loan is just one of the loans the banks has disbursed many others also exist...every loan will have a risk attached to it so the bank offers CDO's to people who are ready to provide the bank assurance that if u default they will pay the bank...to do this the bank groups all the loans with a level of risk in what is called a "Tranche" & then sells it to potential buyers

Now Securitization is nothing but the classification & grouping of pool of loans together into "Tranches" which is done via a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to whom the bank transfers all its loan assets in order to reduce its balance sheet risk.

Cant get simpler than this...
474

Well, I recently read about an article where banks sold certain derivative products to companies to hedge thei exchange rate risks etc. Just wondering whether this function comes under a regular IB activity?

Do IB dals with specific products and hunt down companies to sell those products?

475

awesome ans mr harry
thk u sooooooooooooooooooooo much

476

Hey Jamiroquai!!

Thanks a ton for the information that ur giving out!!! Nothing less than social service to the confused people who want to get into IB but have neither the background nor knowledge(a.k.a ME!! :)) By the way I am @rochester simon doing my first year!! Are u in stern??

477

Hi Jamiroquai,

Ca va?

Well, recollecting from some earlier post on this thread, you mentioned that you too are an engineer and you've got decent finance work experience in India........ Mumbai, right?

I'd be very grateful to you if you can share your experience how you made the switch or how you landed a job in Finance, what kind of your first job was and so on.

It will be helpful for non IT people to make a shift or just to get an idea how we can land up such a job.

Merci 😃

478
Hi Jamiroquai,

Ca va?

Well, recollecting from some earlier post on this thread, you mentioned that you too are an engineer and you've got decent finance work experience in India........ Mumbai, right?

I'd be very grateful to you if you can share your experience how you made the switch or how you landed a job in Finance, what kind of your first job was and so on.

It will be helpful for non IT people to make a shift or just to get an idea how we can land up such a job.

Merci :)


Ca va bien, mon ami (amie?), merci beacoup. I have an undergrad degree in engineering and 3 years of investment banking experience in Mumbai. However, I managed to get this first job purely through luck: HR looked at my resume. It was boom time (2007) and they needed people.