Guest Column
KNOWING ABOUT CAREER CHOICES:
Investment Banker’s career progression
Abhishek Anand
Director, Eptitude
I
N ORDER TO START, RUN AND
grow a business a firm needs
investment in terms of capital and it
also needs to make sound strategic
decisions. Investment bankers play a
significant role in helping firms raise
capital and making such decisions. With
so much emphasis and policy stimulus
for entrepreneurship, the demand for
investment bankers will grow
significantly in coming times. So, it is
worth to understand the making of such a
professional for a career decision.
Investment banking helps a firm or client
in broadly two ways. One, raising capital
for the firm – this could be in the form of
equity or debt and two, helping firms in
strategic decisions involving mergers,
acquisitions and divestments.
Initially at entry level, the role of an
Investment Banker is that of an analyst
and involves doing ground work for
sales pitches and ground work for
execution of client assignments. A
major proportion of time is spent on
quantitative analysis, that is, number
crunching, analyzing the financial
statements of clients, doing sector
research, making presentations and so
forth.
An analyst is required to analyze the
financial statements of the client and
present the financial picture of the
c l i e n t ' s c o m p a n y. A t h o r o u g h
understanding of various financial ratios
and measures is therefore a must. Excel
sheet will be your best friend or it could
be your nemesis if you are not
comfortable with it. It won't be wrong to
say that an analyst breathes, sleeps and
eats excel sheets. All the number
crunching will be done on excel sheets.
Analytical skill is a core skill required to
be a good investment banker. A good
investment banker knows how to take
meaning out of loads and at time diverse
chunks of information.
After spending 3-5 years in the role of an
analyst, the next role could be that of an
associate and involves interaction with
the clients. In most investment banking
firms an associate is expected to manage
clients and is not given the task of
acquiring new clients. In this role the
associate is expected to do more of
qualitative analysis like understanding
of company's management including
their educational and professional
Excel sheet will be your best friend or it could be your
nemesis if you are not comfortable with it. It won't be wrong
to say that an analyst breathes, sleeps and eats excel
sheets. All the number crunching will be done on excel
background, their vision, the way
employees view their company and
management, the rate of employee
turnover and other such qualitative
factors which a