A long time ago, the idea of a pre-MBA internship was odd because most people stayed in their full-time jobs until their MBAs began. Also, getting into a top MBA was so much of a hassle that few people wanted to apply for something else before the program began. But then recruiting moved up, the MBA process became more structured, and now we have 4-year-olds aiming for “Target Kindergartens” so they can eventually get into investment banking ~15 years in the future. Due to this “early prep” craze, pre-MBA programs of all types have become more popular. Many incoming MBA students now wonder if ..read more

Amidst the miserable deal environment of the past few years, there has been one bright spot: sports private equity. Even as deal activity, fundraising, and exits have slowed everywhere, billionaires and PE firms backed by billionaires continue to acquire and invest in sports teams. Over two-thirds of NBA teams have a private equity connection or investment, and all major U.S. leagues except the NFL now allow PE firms to own minority stakes in teams. In Europe, 35% of football clubs have been funded via capital from PE/VC firms, sovereign wealth funds, or private consortiums. So, why have PE fi ..read more

If you go by most online discussions, investment banking spring weeks in the U.K. are as essential as oxygen or high grades if you want to work at a large bank. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of “group think” here, driven by endless forum threads and student groups over-hyping and over-marketing the concept. Banks are also to blame because they now market spring weeks to students as young as 16. If you want to work in investment banking in London, these “spring weeks” (1-2-week mini-internships in your first or second year of university) are helpful but not necessarily required. It is 100% possi ..read more

Over the past few decades, growth equity (GE) has gone from an afterthought to a major asset class for huge investment firms. Some argue that GE offers the best of both worlds: the opportunity to fund innovation and growth – as in venture capital – plus the ability to limit downside risk and invest in proven companies – as in private equity. Others would counter that growth equity’s rapid ascent was mostly due to the easy money that persisted between 2008 and 2021. With interest rates at ~0%, funds inevitably flowed into anything with “growth” in the name – regardless of its real growth potent ..read more

While everyone seems to know about equity research and trading stocks, fixed income research gets far less attention. Partially, it’s an issue of accessibility: Everyone understands what happens to the stock price if a company beats earnings… …but few people understand what it means if a company is set to violate a debt covenant on page 214 of its credit agreement. But a few other reasons also explain why fixed income often gets overlooked: the unstructured recruiting process, fewer job openings, and the “cushiness” of senior-level roles. For the right person, though, fixed income research can ..read more

If you think about the most “public” investors – the likes of Bill Ackman and David Einhorn – many of them have something in common: they operate single-manager hedge funds. In other words, they’re the public face and brand of their fund, and all investment decisions flow through them. They might have separate teams for specific strategies or markets, but everything is run under a single Profit & Loss statement (P&L). This setup creates many differences with multi-manager (MM) hedge funds, from investment styles to recruiting and careers. Interestingly, some well-known hedge funds are ..read more

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: yes, we’ve covered the growth equity case study before, but I’m doing it again because I don’t think the previous examples were great. They over-complicated the financial model (e.g., minutiae about issues like OID for debt issuances) and did not accurately represent a 1- or 2-hour case study. So, you can think of this example and tutorial as “Growth Equity Case Study: The Final Form.” It combines the best examples I’ve received from students over the past 15 years and gives you a realistic idea of what to expect. It’s an excerpt from our Venture Cap ..read more

If you want to read angry comments and long threads with plenty of insults, you can’t go wrong with the wealth management vs. investment banking debate. It’s one area where people on both sides tend to talk past each other: Bankers say that wealth management roles pay less, offer less interesting work, and lack good exit opportunities. Wealth managers say that investment banking requires crazy hours, has mostly dull work, and is ridiculously competitive to get into; also, the “compensation ceiling” may be similar in both fields, so why kill yourself in banking? The truth is that both claims ..read more

The markets in 2023 were almost a complete reversal of 2022, and hardly anyone – me included – saw it coming. My portfolio did “OK” (up 10% for the year), but it greatly underperformed the S&P 500, which was up 24%. On the other hand, I was only down 9% in 2022 vs. a 19% drop for the S&P, so both the index and my portfolio are now back to “early 2022” numbers. This result is disappointing because it ends my 4-year streak of matching or beating the market, and it’s all because of my bad decisions. With better decisions, I could have been up 15 – 20% for the year and slightly above my le ..read more

If you want to know how to get an investment banking internship, it’s simple: Start very, very early and have a great “Plan B” if something goes wrong. The IB internship recruiting timeline is now so insane that even mainstream news sources like the Wall Street Journal are writing about it (“The Race Is On to Hire Interns for 2025. Really.”). And yes, you read the news correctly: Banks like RBC, DB, Houlihan Lokey, Rothschild, and Guggenheim opened 2025 summer internship applications in calendar year 2023. Admittedly, not all banks did this, and many bulge bracket firms will start in the norma ..read more