Between a rock and a hard place...

Honestly, It took me 5 freaking years in the industry to figure out that I wasn't built for it. Some would argue that I wouldn't be having the same notion if I entered the Industry a few years earlier. I tend to agree in part. The abundance of deals in the market has reduced drastically over the years post the crisis that engulfed the Financial markets during the 2008 period , and it is only set to reduce further. Its clearly shark infested waters out there with every bank vying for a piece of the pie (which is clearly getting smaller). Profit margins have reduced for every deal due to the fierce competition, across all asset classes. With regulatory framework's like the Basel III in place, credit charges will make it tougher for Investment Banks to execute deals due to the escalating costs involved. The benefits are clearly diminishing. Structured products, once sought as continuously evolving products, are slowly losing their shine , with many investors shunning away due to the fear of getting "burned" yet again and as regulators cast a perpetual spotlight on the market. My personal opinion is that the conditions in the markets has definitely made the industry the most unforgiving one for juniors like me. The risk of losing our jobs have never been more pronounced. Firing the bosses (Directors and Managing Directors) first are just a myth. The cuts will come from below because relatively, we are the cheapest. Directors and Managing directors who have more than 7-8 years of experience and who have amassed massive chunks of bank shares as part of their bonuses (due to the scrutiny of bankers bonuses, most firms are packaging them in restricted cash and shares these days) are too expensive to fire now. Hence, the carnage will continue.

My gloating might come as a bother to some, it makes me sound ungrateful, due to the fact that honestly, compensation (even with the non existence of humungous bonus packages these days) has been ahead of my other peers in other industries. And some may argue that If I don't see a bright future in this, why am I still doing it. Well, it is all relative. The predicament is that over the years my expectations have been re-pegged. Not only within the dealing room, but with my peers in the same positions. Although I know that I am a well grounded individual, these expectational comparisons are inevitable when you are in the front office pressure cooker. And If things just isn't going your way (clearly what's happening now), you feel dejected. And slowly, you lose interest in the big picture. Additionally, earning more naturally increases the amount of leverage you take into your life. Liabilities creep up over time and this aspect clearly requires career stability, which is certainly non existent in these market conditions. Recently, I am more afraid of losing my job than losing a deal. Every time I step into the dealing room these days, massive butterflies build in my stomach. This situation will likely be magnified as time progresses. Any who, lets move on shall we..enough depression for a day. I would like to return the 5 years ago period....

As I had mentioned, my phone interview process went well, and I was told to come in for my first interview the next Monday. So what followed was me scrambling for all the information I get. I clearly understood the front office functions then. 4 core functions, there was Debt Capital Markets (the traditional Investment Banking Division), Sales, Structuring and Trading. Sales, Structuring and Trading were faster functions given the degree of secondary activities. Anyway, I will speak about these functions in some later posts perhaps. I needed to get acquainted with the current financial market situation then which was clearly the Sub -prime crisis. I poured over articles of the origins of the crisis and all the relevant details for hours just to understand the intricacies of the situation. This so I could at least impress the interviewers with some apt knowledge. Then of course the technicals which I swear almost made me cry. I decided to take the fast way out and Investopedia everything. Was I prepared for the interviews? Well frankly no. But I took a leap of faith. "Finish the game", was what I wanted to do. So that Monday morning, I had a new shirt pressed, new pants and my best of 3 ties. I drenched myself in perfume, cleanly shaved and swallowed a whole pack of smints. I was ultra nervous in the train, but fortunately a few hot chicks strolled in to the cabin to help assuage the tension. I clearly remembered one of the hot ones, with the tight office skirts hiked above knee level and a cleavage that made one look thrice. Ok, enough with that, there will be plenty of time to talk about my fetishes. So I arrived 30 minutes in advance, and ignored a vital rule about first interviews, which is don't come too early! I sat at the bus station looking thru some newspaper articles I got a hold of. I got to see the office crowd in action, most banker looking types coming with the normal lattes in their hands. The view made me even more nervous for some reason. Given this is probably one of the only chances i have to walk amongst them in the future. So the time came and I exchanged passes at the lobby and went up. The reception was lavish as usual and even the receptionist was hot. She spoke to me in an obviouly made up accent which was a turn off and told me to wait in Room 1. As usual, the boss will be fashionably late. I sat in the room, shifting postures and trying to look as I best as I could for him before he enters the room. After 15 minutes, I saw his figure walking thru the blinds, the Managing Director I spoke to entered. He introduced himself and I of course gave my firmest handshake. The first five minutes was extremely critical and he started with the traditional question of " tell me about yourself". I hid my quivering voice and gave him a short and sweet introduction, trying not to go in circles and we finally spoke about a topic a kin to both of us. Football! I saw him light up and he started smiling more as we went about this topic for a good few minutes. I also mentioned how I had to work my ass off since I was young coming from a lower income family and I think he liked the humility. I had him figures out I guess and it was 30 minutes into the interview so I must be doing something right. He started going deeper with the questions but surprisingly non too technical. It was more of gauging how much of a potentially good sales person I can be. I asked some valid questions like what he thought of the whole current crisis and he clearly mentioned it was isolated and the business was still doing well yada yada. At the end, he said to me "hang on theres someone else I will want you to meet, you will potentially be working with him". That someone was to be my first line manager.  I was on a roll! And it all looked good from that perspective. That would be my second interview! So my line manager came in, a pudgy looking Asian, with neatly combed hair, and from the looks of it, refined with cool cufflinks etc. You could smell sales man from a distance. He was even easier to handle being more impressed with what I had accomplished academically. However, he was somewhat detached from the whole interview constantly checking his mobile which was making these irritating bell type sms ringtones. That lasted for a good 30 minutes before he said he would have to leave. The first MD came back and said his goodbye before mentioning "we will get back to you if anything". This was the sentence that kept me up for the following few days. If you thought waiting for the first call was the worst, this was even crazier. The amount of speculation I came up with was amazing. Even after I knew I pulled the right cards during the interview, I zoomed into what I did wrong, even the littlest of things. Three days after, HR called, they want me to come for the panel interviews. Then I thought, shit was about to get messy!

To be continued folks......

Show me the money.....not

Have you ever been in an ultra important meeting with your bosses or seniors and fantasized doing something crazy in the midst? Like standing up and doing some pelvic thrusts or punching the person speaking... not that you have any reason to, just for fun...Well I have, numerous number of times apparently. Of course, it was just playing in my mind the whole time, never actually went ahead with it... 

Ahh, where was I... oh yes, the 5 year flashback. Before I continue, lets beam back to present day. To put things into perspective, the financial markets are in a mess ; global equity markets have practically erased this years gains, the US economy is accelerating at a slower pace than expected, China's economy is showing signs of slowing down and even talks of a hard landing, and the mother of all issues, the EUROZONE CRISIS.... Greece is in shits and the Spaniards are in the crosshairs now, bailout after freaking bailout has been dished out, with fear of contagion widespread. Problems seem to be coming out of the woodwork for these guys. Needless to say, another global economic meltdown brewing.I shall not bore you with my macroeconomic opinions for now. The bottom line is, the conditions in Investment Banks have steadily been deteriorating since 2008 (i.e post the collapse of Lehman brothers). Stricter capital requirements , the regulatory armada..i.e Basel III and the Dod-Frank ,and of course so much scrutiny on compensation have devalued the incentive of working in , let alone being a shareholder of an Investment Bank. How does this affect me? Well, all the stories you heard of Investment Bankers raking in millions in bonuses in their first few years on the job, are a thing of the past. Seriously, I used to hear my seniors talk about their glory days, and mind you these guys got into the industry 2-4 years before me, all were handsomely rewarded, with some hitting the big 7 digits in their 2nd year payouts! Disgusting I know, but true... Well, none of that for me and my other unfortunate peers who got in at the f***ing peak before shit happened (2008). Gone are the days. To say the least in this present day, as an Investment Banker , YOU WILL NOT GET PAID. 

Back to the flashback(before I get too carried away). Where was I..oh right, the phone interview. So that fateful day I received the call, I was jubilant of course, but also realized the heavy tasks that awaits me. The voice on the other side was some MD as he introduced himself, and he mentioned he was in Sales, covering Financial Institutions. Kaaching, front office!! At that time I didn't know what it meant exactly but f***k me, I wanted it so bad, I would say anything. At that moment in time, I was his bitch. So he quizzed me a bit on shit like my personal accomplishments etc and I answered as best as I could, at times with a quivering voice (due to my freaking nerves of course). And he asked me the golden question, "which area are you interested in". I answered "Investment Banking"... (clearly it didn't seem like a stupid answer at the time) and he retorted , well Investment Banking is broad! In that instant I was lost, In my mind I was like "dude you better come up with a better answer fast you f**ker". Immediately, I recalled him mentioning he was from Sales, and I immediately replied, I've always wanted to be in Sales. Following a couple of other discussion topics highlighting qualities that made me a good Sales person, I earned myself an interview the next Monday. I'm going to Hollywood! haha, not exactly. As much as I was happy, I have always been an ultra pessimist , hence, I wasn't counting my chickens then. I imagined probably being one of at least 100 he shortlisted. So I started prepping myself...and the rest as they say is history. Not quite. I plan to give you a blow by blow detail of what is to follow but for now, I have to end this post.

Its anti-climax I know but a man has got to go to bed...Till next time, good night

Be gentle , I'm a newbie.....

Wow, finally i've gone live with this... not that it really matters to anyone. I never knew starting up a blog would be this tough...pardon my ignorance, and of course the horrid layout that I came up with (never had an ounce of art in me). I was told that blogging would be therapeutic...well, we shall see about that won't we. For what it's worth, with this blog I present you my life as a "young" (if you consider 29 young) Investment Banker, a struggling one for reasons that would soon be apparent to you (sounds corny I know). Totally stripped, without pretense, I will try as much as possible, to debunk the myths that you have all heard about this industry. You may need to tolerate some of the bullshit and profanity i spew though...

" The Investment banking industry is no longer going thru a cyclical problem, the problem is structural now"...were the words of one of my bosses...In other words, if you had entered the industry at or after 2007, you're screwed... Well I and numerous others are products of this structural problem, a price we had to pay for being born later (no exact solution there).  You will begin to understand why soon enough. Lets flashback 5.5 years ago...

In my third year of University, I heard my seniors speak about the glory of being in a coveted front office role in a top Investment bank, top notch pay far above peers at the same level, huge ass bonuses,  in short, a high flying corporate career. I , like any other greedy undergraduate, driven by dreams of becoming a corporate bigwig, was of course taken by this idea. Of course, there were also discouraging statements like , " You will not stand a chance compared to an Ivy Leaguer", " The interview processes will kill you" ..yadayadayada and the list goes on. I knew it would have been tough, especially given I was from an engineering background and knew jackshit about finance, and my only asset was being excellent at Math. Besides, competition was ruthless with Indian and Chinese scholars mainly all vying for the same freaking positions (By now u would probably get the hint that I am a local Singaporean, born and bred. Well if you haven't guessed, there you have it). Honestly, I didn't have anything to lose. In my final year (4th) , I went full steam ahead in terms of preparation for battle, i.e the interview processes, reading up, keeping track of news etc, I blocked out any negativity and discouragement from peers. When my buddies were busy getting interviews for engineering jobs, and even offers at cushy engineering companies, I had none of that (As a result, some of them landed jobs months before me). There was only one thing that drove me , MO MONEY (yeah there we go with the corny lines again). I didn't have the luxury of growing up in a well to do family, hence the piercing ambition. I didn't just want to graduate and secure a stable cushy job, I wanted a GREAT JOB, that would put me ahead of peers (no pride or hubris intended) Oh and I forgot to mention a critical aspect, I was doing pretty well in school. I attended at least 3 of those bullshit career talks by banks and I stopped... because I knew the pressure would be tremendous after. You have a lecture theatre packed with close to a thousand students all wanting a piece of that MD who was giving the opening speech...I'll tell you a secret.. most of the MD's want to go home after that or at least scroll thru their blackberry's for the massive amounts of emails they have been receiving whilst giving that opening speech! So the longer you hold them back, the more it pisses them off! Over enthusiastic students swamped the booths after that ...Seriously what's the point? They are not gonna hire you there and then people! Half of them wont even remember you. And most of the information are available on the websites anyways. These were some of the reasons why I gave up going to career talks after the third. But I must admit the buffet spread the career offices set up were pretty decent. I graduated in mid of 2007, and clearly remember some of the bright Indian scholars boasting they had secured jobs in Investment banks (what kinda roles weren't important at that stage, at least they made it). I had 10 applications out. Yeah, I remember the essay questions, numeracy tests and all that crap. I applied for most of the graduate analyst programmes amongst which were UBS, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Barclays , HSBC etc...And I was the least confident that I would make it to anyone of the above. I figured, hey if all else fails, there's always that engineering job waiting... perhaps oil and gas or aerospace.It was already 2 months into my application, no calls whatsoever, and I was about to give the f**k up. I remembered jumping at every phone call and brightening up when an unknown number flashes. So what if I did well in school, I didn't have income, or more importantly a freaking JOB! I did go for  some interviews thru leads (not one of the graduate program applications).One was with a Private bank, and it was one of those positions for a Private Bankers assistant. The interviewer mentioned that I would do binding etc, which honestly, at that point of desperation I wouldn't mind...Seriously, I figured that would be a stepping stone at least...but that was a load of bullshit of course. That didn't go well and I was thinking how I really sucked. Then that fateful Tuesday morning in August came, the call from one of the Investment Banks I applied for ...ahhh..a phone interview alas!

To be continued...I have an early client meeting tomorrow to explain why a product i didn't sell them f**ked up.... Goodnight folks...