Corporate Finance Concentration Chat November 20, 2012 UNC Kenan Flagler Business School

Transcription

1 Corporate Finance Concentration Chat November 20, 2012 UNC Kenan Flagler Business School Kelly Lynch_Admissions: Hi everyone and welcome! We will get started here in just a few minutes. Have your questions ready! Bill Weld, Asst. Prof Finance: Hi Everyone My name is Bill Weld, and I am the professor for the first finance class that is part of the "core curriculum" for all first year students. MarshallPrinty_FinanceClubPres: Welcome to the Kenan Flagler Corporate Finance Concentration Chat! My name is Marshall Printy, and I am the Finance Club president At Kenan Flagler. I am also a second year concentrating in Corporate Finance. In terms of my background I used to be a high school math teacher and after business school I will be joining Harris Williams, a boutique Investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services. Also on the chat from Kenan Flagler are Professor Bill Weld; Sherry Wallace and Kelly Lynch from Admissions; second years Bryan Fleming and Stacey Helgren. Stacey Helgren_Current Student: Good afternoon! I'm Stacey, a second year student from Chicago. I spent last summer with Morgan Stanley in their Institutional Equity Division, and will be joining them full time in August Kelly Lynch_Admissions: We are ready to answer any questions you might have so fire away! Jon Freeland: Can you all tell us more about who the major companies are that recruit at UNC and what kind of demand you are seeing for corporate finance MBAs? Freeland: although corporate finance has more work life balance pros, to me it wasn't going to be as interesting work because with IB you get to analyze the finances of multiple firms Freeland: Some companies that recruit on campus for Finance at KFBS are: Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Wells Fargo, GE Finance, Lowes, Delta, J&J Kelly Lynch_Admissions: If you are curious about at which companies our students have accepted jobs and internships over the past five years, you can reference the excel spreadsheet at the bottom of this page. You can search by company and location roster

2 : What advice would you give for a career switcher going into Corp Finance, without prior banking/finance/acct experience? Would taking CFA Level 1 help? Taking the CFA is helpful if you are interested in doing investment management careers or sales & trading related fields but not as important if you want to go into investment banking or other corporate finance jobs. Also some more advice I can give is just to learn about the different industries either by using vault guides, reading Dealbook (learning about current M&A transactions) WSJ looking for major capital raises etc. and simply talking to people in those industries about their jobs Pat Wilson: I'm very interested in learning more about Impact Investing. Are there any courses, workshops, networks, or projects that current exist at Kenan Flagler that have a specific focus on this niche of the investment community? Bill Weld, Asst. Prof PWilson I believe that there is an elective course offered in impact investing. Additionally, the school is extremely dedicated to social responsible behavior, as evidenced by our multiple clubs, organizations, and conferences. Net Impact is a good place to start looking at our activism. David Canfield: Hi Stacey Is your position at Morgan Stanley in Chicago? Stacey Helgren_Current nope it is in New York. I would love to make it back to Chicago eventually, as MS does have an office there. Samuel Prof. Weld, what are some things that we could be doing now to prepare ourselves for the rigors of finance UNC? Bill Weld, Asst. Prof Pray Samuel Edwards: HA! Bill Weld, Asst. Prof Finance: Just kidding. Quantitative review is good Bill Weld, Asst. Prof Finance: any corporate finance textbook would be helpful to start looking at now, so the "language" of finance comes as less of a shock Bill Weld, Asst. Prof Finance: Additionally, you may want to consider attending ASW, which is a summer program to get you ramped up to speed. About 80% of the incoming class takes some ASW.

3 Kelly Lynch_Admissions: If you are interested in learning more about ASW, the Analytical Skills Workshop we hold the summer before classes start, you can click here mba summer program David Canfield: Marshall How hard was it for you to transition from education to investment banking? David Canfield: more from a career search standpoint than the workload It was very difficult learning about all the ins and outs of the industry while I was talking to recruiters in the Fall of my first year. Still, I knew I had to convince those recruiters that I knew what I was getting into before they were going to give me an internship Bill Weld, Asst. Prof in general, lots of students look for career switching. So, it is definitely feasible to get a job in investment banking, regardless of your background. EricaDavis: Are there any plans to offer an Evening MBA program? Kelly We have an existing evening MBA program that is part of our Executive MBA program. Our executive evening MBA offers core classes Monday Thursday from 6:00 9:15 p.m. on campus with electives offered through our Weekend MBA program during the last 8 months. To learn more, click here: flagler.unc.edu/programs/emba/eveningmba/schedule John were you able to leverage course work in your interviews? John Kapteyn: or did you just have to explain that you were intelligent and could get up to speed quickly? Yes. Thankfully KFBS not only has a great curriculum in finance, we also offer Training the Street classes more geared towards the work you would actually do as an Investment Banker. in your IB interviews the firms expect you to know the fundamentals of finance and accounting. If you have a background in IB, then they expect to know in more detail about deals you have worked on and what your role was in those deals. John thats awesome. is it a disadvantage without the IB background absolutely not. Bulge bracket firms like to have associate classes with different backgrounds. However, the smaller firms like prior experience because they don't have the same resources for training etc.

4 John Thanks so much. That's helpful. My interest isn't specifically in IB, just trying to get a feel for transitioning from Finance to Healthcare and I'm thinking some of those principles are transferable Kapteyn: KFBS is a great school if you want to transition to HC. Good Luck with that! Tiffany Clay: How does the internship program work in the MBA curriculum? Bill Weld, Asst. Prof The internship is a summer program, so the career management team helps you find a summer position between your first and second year Samuel Stacey Helgren, What was your background before attending UNC for your MBA? Stacey Helgren_Current I worked in Asset Management prior to B School but more on the sales and marketing side. I was a communication major undergrad. I would consider myself a partial career switcher! Jon Freeland: Does anybody ever double major with Finance and Marketing? If so, what type of jobs do they end up taking? SherryWallace_Adm Students may elect to concentrate if they wish. Marketing is one of our concentrations. We have three concentrations in the finance area: Corp Finance, Investment Mgmt and Real Estate. Most students would not do both marketing and another career concentration like one of the finance ones, but it's possible to take elective courses from all those areas SherryWallace_Adm We offer more than 110 elective courses each academic year. Some of those electives fall under a concentration, and others do not. You can pick courses a la carte in addition to following a concentration Neeraj Kumar: Hi everyone, From the perspective of consulting and entrepreneurship, what advice would you give on the courses in finance that one can undertake at KFBS? Bill Weld, Asst. Prof there is a whole academic department here that offers an extensive menu of entrepreneurship courses. Most of the finance related careers are going to require the same basic tools: financial accounting, corporate finance, basic asset pricing, so the core will get you most of the way there.

5 Allen Lobo: Hi everyone, this is a question for Marshall, Stacey and any career center staff how many management consultants do you see transitioning to corporate finance and investment banking? Is that harder in the current economic environment? Stacey Helgren_Current there are a lot of similarities between what firms look for in consulting and banking. Detail oriented, accounting skills, strong quant skills, etc... We have seen several people in our class make the transition. The consulting background would not be an obstacle! Allen Lobo: Thanks very much Stacey, its great to know that. One more question which kinds of corporate finance careers other than equity research would deep expertise in an industry domain be valued? (I have been a management consultant for the wireless sector) Stacey Helgren_Current aside from research your expertise would certainly be valuable in investment banking as well (within TMT groups for example) Samuel Edwards: if you are interested in healthcare IB, would it be wise to seek a healthcare and finance dual concentration? SherryWallace_Adm Thanks for asking about our health care concentration. Healthcare is one of three enrichment concentrations we offer that are designed to overlay with one of our career concentrations. So yes, you could do both the healthcare concentration and one of our finance career concentrations together Madhusudan Thank you for arranging this event. How difficult is it to get an internship at a private equity fund in the US? I plan to come back to India post my MBA but would love the opportunity to gain firsthand understanding of opportunities and challenges in the space. Getting a job in PE is more difficult than getting a job in IB. It depends heavily on current situation in the market as well as the particular hiring needs at each firm. Usually PE firms like to hire former analysts from IB firms. Having said that, there are some people who get internships in PE from KFBS. Madhusudan Thanks a lot. That s helpful. The student managed private equity fund at KFBS should also be a great opportunity to gain practical understanding of the PE space. Of course. We have a great PE club here on campus and you're right about the PE fund it's a great talking point during interviews.

6 Kevin Overby: Stacey, what would you view as typical exit opportunities for asset management professionals? I know asset management is fairly broad. But do you have any indication as to what a typical path would be for someone coming out of asset management and heading in to an MBA? Stacey Helgren_Current are you working in asset management now? Or considering it after your MBA? Kevin Overby: I am currently in asset management. specifically with a fund of funds making private investments in natural resources. Obviously, it would be natural to continue on with this after a potential MBA. But I am also curious as to what other routes may be logical or if you have seen a trend from people starting out in asset management Kevin Overby: Sorry, that was Stacey. Thanks! Stacey Helgren_Current this may sound a little broad but... honestly anything! Some of the skills you have acquired will be applicable to any field in finance. That said, folks with asset management backgrounds have moved into marketing, consulting, etc. Stacey Helgren_Current Student: it depends if you are looking for a career switch, or are happy in finance! Allen Lobo: Thanks very much Stacey. This question is for the school reps in general there are no explicit concentrations that are technology focused. Which concentrations would you recommend for someone like me who wants to focus on corporate finance in the tech sector? (other than the corp fin concentration of course!) Bill Weld, Asst. Prof the same skills are required for corporate finance, regardless of the industry. Prior to academia, I did natural resource development, network infrastructure, M&A, leverage finance, high tech investing, etc. The same basic skills are required across the board. Allen Weld thank you very much sir. Pat Wilson: What about VC internships? Do you know of / heard of any KFBS students getting summer internships in this arena? Do any VC funds recruit on campus or would most of those opportunities be self initiated? Stacey Helgren_Current there are not a lot of VC firms that come directly to campus (our campus, or any campus for that matter). However that is not to say it can't be done! Your internship search would be largely self directed (this is OK mine was too!), so just be prepared to do your own research and travel off campus for interviews/firm visits

7 Kelly I posted this earlier, but feel free to browse the excel sheet at the bottom of this page to get an idea of where our students have accepted jobs and internships over the past five years (you can search by company, if you re particularly interested in VC firms) flagler.unc.edu/programs/mba/career/recruiter roster Stacey Helgren_Current also while they do not come for recruiting necessarily, members of the local VC community are present on campus as judges at case competition, and at events hosted by the Entrepreneurship Venture Capital Club. Pat Wilson: Great, thanks for the intel Stacey and Kelly. One last vc/impact investing question, since this niche would seem to fall between corp fin, entrep., and sustainable enterprise concentrations of the three which two would you recommend picking? Stacey Helgren_Current Student: Pat you will have the opportunity to take classes in all of these areas, no matter what your concentration. It is also important to note that a concentration is not mandatory, so you have the opportunity to truly design your own curriculum. I would recommend coming to campus, starting to take classes in these areas, and figure out which you find most interesting! Kris: Hi all, thanks for this opportunity.. This question is for the school reps and also the current students. I hold a masters degree in Industrial Management from India, graduated in 2009, and a bachelors in engineering. I have worked in Management Consulting for the past 3.5 years, and have 5.5 years of total experience. I plan to get in to the field of Investment Finance, and wanted to understand if an MBA in Finance from a reputed school such as KFBS would help me with this transition from my background. I am a certified FRM and have cleared the CFA Level 1 exam too. Bill Weld, Asst. Prof Yes. An MBA is an excellent way to switch careers Kris: Prof. Weld, thanks for responding. My concern is regarding the heavy non finance background I have that may cause finance companies to back out from offering MBA associate level roles. I may have misplaced concerns, but wanted to get it clarified. Thanks again Bill Weld, Asst. Prof IB Firms recruit talent. You don't sound geriatric, so they will not be concerned that you won't survive the associate pool. So, as long as you demonstrate strong quant skills, good "fit" and solid understanding of IB, you should be a viable candidate. HYQing: Can anyone comment on finance rotational programs by big banks (BofA, WellsFargo etc)? Why are some of the advantages / disadvantages of joining these programs? HYQing: *What

8 Bill Weld, Asst. Prof banks that offer rotational programs, and one ones that direct hire into a specialist group both recruit here. So, once you have an offer, I would be happy to help you choose. Thomas Moran: Do student academic transcripts get released to companies if requested? I have heard many IB/Corp Fin firms request grades from certain quant classes during the recruiting process. Thanks! The only firms that really care about your grades are IB firms and Consulting firms. None of the companies can request your transcripts but they may ask for some of your grades and they do expect you to answer them. MarshallPrinty_FinanceClubPres: during the interviews I mean Samuel Edwards: Have you seen any disadvantage to career switchers who obtain their MBA after 30? Stacey Helgren_Current we have a very wide range of ages in our class. I would guess from There is also the executive program (an older group), and the MBA@UNC online program (also older). People have a variety of backgrounds, and I haven't seen any disadvantages from being over 30. Avinash : Do the firms coming to recruit look at the GMAT scores Again, this is mostly for IB and Consulting, but yes they do like to know your GMAT score. The Career center suggests that you put it on your resume if it's above 680. Prof Weld and others Thank you very much for your time Bill Weld, Asst. Prof thanks for your interest! Samuel Edwards: Will a score doom your chances for IB? it won't doom your chances but you will need to show that you have the horsepower to do the work. These companies do want people who are smart and who work hard. Anyway you can show them that helps!

9 Kelly Lynch_Admissions: Thank you all for joining us today! If you'd like to see the transcript from this chat, it will be posted by the end of the week here events/online chats Also, we will be holding an Admissions specific webinar NEXT TUESDAY, November a.m. EST to answer any and all questions you may have about the admissions process. Allen Weld, Stacey, Marshall, Kelly Thank you very much for your time. This has been most helpful. Samuel Edwards: Thank you all so much Stacey Helgren_Current Student: Good luck to all! Bill Weld, Asst. Prof Finance: Best of luck! HYQing: Thanks for an awesome chat! Pat Wilson: Thanks so much for hosting. Great info.