A Day in the Life of a Private Equity Associate at Apex Capital Growth Partners
A day for a summer associate in investment banking at Apex Capital Growth Partners begins around 8:00 AM with planning, followed by "random staffings" from superiors assigning projects like "financial modeling or pitch decks." The work, often until late, involves collaboration with other summer associates and analysts on tasks such as finding merger and acquisition targets, all while navigating a competitive environment with "not 100% retention rate" due to macroeconomic factors.
Investment Banking, Financial Modeling, Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), Teamwork, Fast-Paced Environment
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Jerry Zhou
Private Equity Associate
Apex Capital Growth Partners
UCLA, 2012
UCLA Anderson School of Management, MBA Candidate
Economics
Finance (Banking, Fintech, Investing)
Finance
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. The daily routine involves arriving at 8:00 AM, planning the day, and responding to ad-hoc requests from superiors, which often include financial modeling, creating pitch decks, and target identification for M&A deals.
2. Summer associates work collaboratively with other summer analysts and interns under the guidance of full-time analysts, performing tasks essential to the deal-making process.
3. The work is demanding, often extending until late evenings or nights to meet deadlines, reflecting the dynamic and often unpredictable nature of investment banking
Transcript
What does a day in the life of an investment banking summer associate look like?
As a summer associate, you always want to be on your best behavior because you're not officially part of the team. This year, macroeconomic effects were pretty bad. Everyone knows there won't be a 100% retention rate, so it's going to be very competitive.
I would arrive in the office around 8:00 AM and plan out my day, trying to get my head in the right spot. Investment banking is very spontaneous because we get random staffings from our superiors, like our VPs or MDs. They will tell us there's a project, what needs to be done, and give us instructions.
Then we carry out these projects, usually with the summer analyst, and also the other undergraduate interns. We all work under the full-time analyst and complete whatever needs to be done. That's usually financial modeling or pitch decks, showing different analyses in the pitch decks for our clients.
We try to persuade them to do a transaction, give updates, or find targets for M&A, things of that sort. We're ready to deal with anything that pops up. This continues throughout the day. Of course, we have lunchtime, and then the same stuff until maybe 8, 9, 10, sometimes midnight, whatever needs to be done before the deadline.
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