This past summer I interned in the Technology, Media and Telecom group.
My day varied depending on the projects I was staffed. Some days were very busy and some days we had enough down time to practice models and so forth. Below is an example of a typical day when I was staffed a live deal, which was most of my time during the summer.
8:00am- Wake up and get something quick to eat on my way to the office
9:00am- Arrive at the office, because I have a phone call at 9:30. Most analysts in the TMT group do not arrive until around 10am unless they have an obligation
9:30-10:30am- Debt financial discussion client call. I listened in on the phone call with our group and the client discussing the terms of raising debt for the client. We discussed putting together presentations and answering any questions the client had.
12:00-1:00- Lunch with a few TMT interns and one of the Managing Directors. It is important to get to know as many MDs and EDs as possible. It is not only a great networking opportunity, but it also makes working with MDs on deals much more comfortable.
1:00-2:00- Call with the CEO of our client’s company to prep for call with the rating agency. This call was meant to be a dry run so that we could make sure the CEO was prepared for the call with the rating agency. We answered any questions he had for us and posed questions the agency would most likely ask.
2:15-2:45- Coffee with mentor. We were assigned mentors in our group, so I made an appointment with my mentor for a quick coffee. Coffees are a great way to get to know people throughout the firm and to learn other people’s perspective on investment banking and really just a chance to ask any questions you may have. Everyone is usually always willing to grab a coffee because they want to meet future assets to the firm and the meetings are short!
3:00-4:00- Client call with the rating agency. The ratings agency gets to ask questions before they distribute a rating to the client and in turn the client has the opportunity to pitch itself as a company that deserves a high rating. I took notes for the meeting and paid special attention to the concerns the rating agency had on our client.
4:30-5:30- Client follow-up call with other book runners. We were lead right on this high yield deal, but we still did a lot of work and had a lot of interaction on this deal.
5:30-6:30- Client legal diligence call. During this call, we reviewed the earlier call we had with the lawyers. We also went over the Debt underwriting papers and any changes that should be made to them.
7:00- Deal team meeting with the ED on the project. I read my notes I took from the earlier phone call. I also was asked to give the main concerns the rating agency had. We went over the sales force memo and I was given comments that needed to be turned around
7:30- Ordered dinner through seamless. As long as you stay past 9:00pm, you are allowed to order dinner free from seamless online ordering system
8:00- Eat dinner
8:30- Turnover comments on the sales force memo. Email it to the full-time analyst on my deal team for review
11:00- Update working group list. This is a document of all the members of the deal team, which includes everyone’s contact information. Upload it to dealworks, which is an online portal so that everyone on the team can share and view documents.
11:45- Shut down my computer, grab a taxi and head home. I am grateful, because this is actually a decent hour to be heading home.
On paper, this may seem like a long day, but when you are on the job time flies! You will start to think there is not enough time in the day to get all your work done.