Bank on Banking

So you impressed them on the phone interviews, nailed the technical questions and brain teasers, made it through the superday with gusto and landed yourself that investment banking analyst position. Now how do you keep the flare going? Regardless of which group hires you, or whether you work for a bulge bracket or boutique, there are several subtle extras to boost your status from average Joe to the go-to-Banker. Every analyst wants to be a superstar, which requires a lot of work, time and commitment. While on the path to…superstardom, just remember to take hold of a few of these simple extras, and you will find the journey at least a little easier.

Deal team contact information

Keep contact information for your team’s active projects in your blackberry. Specifically, include: Client name, company name, phone number, email address, and dial-in information (if they frequently use the same dial in phone number and code). There have been numerous instances where the deal team gathers in the conference room, picks up the phone, and no one has the dial-in information – it is only to your benefit to be the person who has that information, and pulls it up on the blackberry to hand off to your director. It sounds silly, but it makes a difference, and before you know it, your director will be coming to you on a regular basis to see if you have so-and-so’s phone number to get him on for a quick call.

Maintain a team calendar

Along the same lines as the previous point, maintaining a team calendar (for your own benefit, not to be the team’s admin) will surely earn you a few brownie points, or at least allow you to get an idea of who is traveling on which day, so that you know when you can pop in a few minutes late…win, win. Additionally, I have been asked on several occasions where our director or VP is, and with a click of the button, I can say that he is meeting with client X in CA today, or she is on her way to Houston for a conference – looks like she’ll be out through Thursday. Additionally, if you know, for example, a meeting with Company Y is coming up in a week or so, you can swing over to your VP/director and mention that you just realized the team is pitching/meeting with Company Y next week, and you wanted to know if you should start putting a pitch together, or gather any market intel, etc. If nothing else, this is just another way to show that you are committed to your group, and that you stay on top of situations and are detail-oriented, win, win, win – and I think Michael Scott would agree that the win, win, win is ideal.

Know the financials, know the project

As an analyst, one of the most interesting tasks you will perform is financial modeling. This is where the money is made, so know it well. The more on top of the modeling you are for your deals, the more you will be asked to participate both within the team, and on conference calls. Knowing the project and the financials governing the project decisions is one of the best ways to impress your team, and the client. When someone wants to know why we can’t lever up to 85%, even with a 10% bump in production revenues, it will be your job to say that the coverages can’t hold it and then support that position by citing various coverage metrics that fall just shy in an 85/15, D/E structure. The more comfortable you become with the company (client) and the financials, you more you will be able to participate in meetings. Accordingly, the more you are able to contribute to meetings, the more you will be asked to run with tasks in order to further contribute.

Offer help, and check in

Inevitably, there will be times when you are slammed, and a lot of your team is relaxing, and vice versa. In the case of vice versa, i.e., you are relaxing and one of your teammates is slammed, make sure to offer some help (yes, even with the trivial things). Be a team player, if someone is working on a deadline, offer to pull in some research, review a pitch, and create a chart or the like to help him or her out. Not only will they probably return the favor, but the rest of the team will see that you’re not just out for number 1’s well being, but for the entire team’s best interests.

Along the same lines, frequently (but don’t be a pest) check in with the more senior team members to see if there is anything that they need some help with (note: don’t ask unless you’ve got some downtime, you don’t want to offer help if you are already slammed and have 3 seconds for them). It can be reviewing some docs, revising a model/running some sensitivities, editing a pitch, or just gathering some research on an upcoming opportunity. Show the initiative, it will definitely pay off – after all, working a lot is not terribly fun all of the time, but showing the initiative will definitely allow you more opportunities to work on the live deals that close – which are enjoyable and have the added benefit of being resume powerhouses.

Proofread documents, review pitches

You should always ask to proofread any document, whether pitch, memo, etc before going out to a client. In the case of pitch books, I usually take a quick first run-through to check for consistent formatting, then a second run-through where I read through the book to check for spelling or grammatical errors, and then a last run-through which I like to think of as the sanity check, where I run through the financials and sensitivities to make sure everything fits together – i.e. we don’t suddenly have $50 billion in EBITDA in 2012, when every other year EBITDA is around $25 million (yes this is an extreme example, but sanity-checking the numbers and figures often results in catching more than a few subtle and not-so-subtle errors). This process works in two ways: first, you are seen as detail-oriented and committed to helping the team win, and second, you can become the go-to-analyst when the team is on a tight schedule, and needs things to be done quickly and accurately.

Familiarize yourself with the deal team (external)

When you are working on a deal that seems to be moving forward, take some time to learn who the participants are: who is/are the company contact(s) and what titles do they hold in the company. Gather their contact information, research the market conditions, niches, and subtleties of the company, if you haven’t already, and research a few of their competitors and whether they have taken the same steps your project company is taking and why? Begin by digging into the company’s (and competitors’) financials, annual reports, recent headlines, analyst reports, etc. When the internal round table discussion comes around to you, it would be worth a gold star to have something relevant to say regarding the company’s choices and that of their competitors, while knowing who is who on the phone or at the table, rather than sitting confused and disoriented (I love gold stars).

Keep track of team deals whether live or pitched

Keep an ongoing log of the pitched, mandated, live and closed deals of your group – frequently members of your team and other teams will want to know, out of curiosity or for presentation purposes (to impress and highlight strengths), what deals your team has recently closed, and are working on. Keeping a library makes it easy to immediately pick out which deals would be relevant to a given team, what we did, how we did it, and what would work in the current market and why. I would recommend highlighting the Sponsor, participants, transaction size, transaction type, timing, fees earned (or potential), industry and sub sector, relevant rating(s) (whether as broad as high yield or specific such as Moody’s – Ba3), and team members working on the deal (down to the analyst level). This is a surefire way to show that you are on the ball, and have a strong interest in the projects your team is working on.

Be a straight shooter

Last, but certainly not least, be a straight shooter. This one is pretty self explanatory, but in short, don’t be a phony, don’t pretend to be interested in activities just to be like everyone else. There is nothing wrong with being original and having your own opinions (see upcoming article: Ugly Duckling to Banking Swan), as long as they are expressed courteously and without offending anyone else’s interests. Once feigning enthusiasm becomes a habit, it becomes hard to tell what you’re really interested in at all – before you know it, everything just seems kind of bland, and you are but another analyst drone.

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