Corporate Finance Summer Intern (Lead Advisory M&A) Review

Meetings with clients, broader team, Private Equity contacts, Product demos for buyers, Running through financials line by line with clients, asking them questions to understand the core of the business (as the intern you get to go to the meetings but aren't expected to understand all the more complex financials nor know enough to ask the client questions) Create lists and slides of companies with research on them, stratifying companies into groups (relevant for things like market analysis and buyer profiles), Depending on deal cycle when you join, anything from origination work to helping with small and less complex client requests you can handle and take ownership of to helping format bids (to make them like for like) and the very end stage going over legal documents, lively discussions over exact structure (who gets paid out first, sweet equity, exact terms, etc.) A lot of it will be sitting in meetings, where you can take notes if you want but not necessary, and conducting research on individual companies, creating or contributing to teasers, IMs, etc. by conducting research and creating slides on company research, market research and sizing, etc. You likely will also help your Buddy and other members of the team with work they have going on that isn't too complex Solid 9-5, with little expectation to work beyond this (I imagine this varies office to office) and great team Exemplar Work Day (from middle of internship): 9am: Arrive, work on excel spreadsheet on researching a massive (200+ companies) list of potential targets for EY to reach out to. Origination. No deadline or check-ins / updates for this, expected to work at your own pace. Not expected to be completely finished by end of the internship. 11:00am: Start work (Excel) on Market Sizing [INDUSTRY] for [COUNTRY] for [CLIENT] Base off prior EY templates and mainly the client's own market sizing analysis for another country. Research average bid for contract yearly. Research how many contracts. Ask team if EY can pay for research into the latter as no public info. available. Use this information to complete the rest of the analysis. Clearly mark CAGR and market penetration assumptions or any adjustable cells. 12:00 New financials for [Client we are selling] comes in, team discusses how to present this to buyers.

Yes. Gained a familiarity with common research / company information aggregation tools. CapIQ, DnB Onboard, DnB Hoovers, InfoGator, EY internal company research, Factiva. As well as being better able to conduct broader industry research, through both my own search/skills as well as becoming familiar with sites such as mergermarket, IBISWorld Significant use of Excel, Powerpoint. Learned new skills, especially regarding formatting, hotkeys/faster methods to do common tasks and formatting objects in Powerpoint, as well as useful functions and such in Excel Better understanding of financial terms, and how to parse real world "interesting accounting" and line items I was previously unfamiliar with Understand better the complexities of building a 3-statement and valuation (DCF) model for a real company... there can be many, many complexities.

Yes. As outlined above, I have been given tasks that were wholly under my role that were either directly presented to the client (Industry market research, Buyer Profiles (Research, Stratification and Ranking) or fed into the IM / teaser that was sent out to potential buyers (this was mainly market research and Was directly assigned to deal with a few small client requests that I would deal with independently, e.g. "Can you give me a quick run through of the UK X Industry, and break down the top 10 or so major players by revenue from operations In Y" However in the very beginning of the internship you are given great training on how to complete these tasks, and why this method is done. My Buddy briefed me on the key things to include in company research lists (ownership, location, employee count, description, revenue, EBITDA) and as I also understood why these were the most critical I could take this with me and independently complete other tasks well (e.g. can apply this to complete potential target research for a X reseller business, adding in specialism/capability and vendors they work with as this is likely to be relevant to them) They will give you as much responsibility as you want and can handle. Except for maybe like, building a complete 3-statement and then valuation model for a client from scratch. But if you ask you'll definitely have the opportunity to see how they build it and, depending on your own team maybe, help work on it too on less complex places

As mentioned above, you are given good guidance and support. Whilst this could vary on a team to team basis, my experience is that my Buddy (intern main point of contact, more junior) ensured I understood both what I was doing and why I was doing it at all times, and encouraged me to let them know if I needed more support on the work I was doing or if there was anything at all I was interested in. For example, I was briefed on what key things to include in a buyer profile list (for a client we are selling). We both ran through key things we think we should include, and anything I was unsure about they clarified. They then sent me over a template or past example, and after I did a few reviewed it to make sure it was okay. I was then able to do the rest of it wholly independently, but still intermittently ask them questions/for clarification if needed. Upon finishing this, EY received the final bids for client X. I asked if I could look at how he then formats the bids on a like-to-like, comparable basis to help the client and different stakeholders make the best informed decision. This is something I had 0 prior knowledge of but was allowed to learn about and subsequently help with

Great culture. In the regional office, the company culture is great, being very flexible, inclusive and collaborative. As teams sit together, it's very easy to ask for any quick questions or help, as well as get to know the team better. There are also many opportunities to better get to know your team and broader team in team lunches, which aren't scheduled per se but frequent enough. Even when I had 5 tasks at once, 2 directly for clients and 1 for a Partner, I never felt overly burdened or stressed because there were no super strict deadline (I only did 2 tasks which had any actual deadline at all-- 1 to be in any time before the actual meeting with the client going through the exact document I was making, the other research into a company just before we actually all met them for the first time) And because the team ensured I knew exactly how to complete these tasks, and there was never any pressure to stay past 5 or work from home. I was encouraged to not do the latter, if anything. You also have the ability to join pretty much all team meetings-- internal, with clients, private equity/debt companies, etc. and the work you do is directly relevant and all 100% real work (no case studies or paper models for "training") so you feel like part of the team from day 1

A lot. The internship itself was better than I expected it to be in all aspects: The work was more fun and certainly had much more of a real, tangible impact than what I expected (training, case studies, busy work, etc.). The culture as a whole was great, and the team very interested in ensuring I was able to, if not work on, be involved in a wide range of things across the deal lifecycle to gain good experience and development. The hours were better, no stress at all (except once, just before my presentation I was able to do independently was about to be presented directly to the client!), frequent team lunches (~2-3x a week), no work on weekends/out of normal hours (9-5), great team and culture as a whole. Was extremely lucky to come at a time of looking for new clients, just starting with a new client, creating teasers and such for another client, creating IMs for another client and getting the in the final bids for another client. Was able to gain an exposure to the entire spectrum of the deal process by just... asking. Obviously this is partly luck-based, by EY is very accommodating in terms of letting you gain exposure to and learn about anything you're interested in, something I don't believe you could do anywhere else at this level

Yes

Prepare, apply early. Research why EY. Research why EY again, and focus on what separates EY from Big4. Try reaching out to someone who works at EY, or attending an EY event. Go over case studies-- you do not require the best super technical valuation knowledge, but knowing key metrics, drivers and broader industry is great. Be effective at working in teams, and think about the best way to-- on a very limited time-budget, present your points clearly whilst allowing others the chance to share their views. Or better yet, building off their views to add more. That's really it. You are not expected to have significant or really much technical knowledge at all, just a good understanding of EY, and why you want to be part of the team