[elephantom]

what is the difference between an analyst and an associate?

Also what are the different divisions in IB?

Im guessing they all require long hours and pay well.

[JrW]

You become an analyst when you first join the bank i.e straight after your degree.

You become an associate once you have 3-5 years experience. For M&A this is normally after you have taken your MBA, whereas for a sales/trading role you tend not to take an MBA.

There are plenty of division within IB, although it can be summarised as (taken from www.ibtalk.com/forum):
- Trading
- Capital Markets
- M&A/Corporate Finance

Trading
There are three main areas in trading:
Front Office
All trading, sales & research goes on in this area. This is the "revenue generation" part of the trading operation.
Middle Office
Risk analysis, model validation, and some other more specialised activities.
Back Office
Settles trades - verifys that trades have been executed & monies transfered.

Capital Markets
A half-way house between trading and M&A. Equity Capital Markets deals with raising funds through equities (Initial Public Oofferings & further equity offerings), Debt Capital Markets deals with raising funds through Debt (bonds).

M&A/Corporate Finance
There's a buy-side (aquiring firms or divisions) & sell-side (disposing of firms or divisions) to M&A. The buy-side convices everyone the price is too high, the sell-side the price is too low - eventually everyone must agree on a correct valuation. Firms will also hire M&A teams as a defensive measure to a hostile bid from another firm if the defensive firm believes its best interestes are not in being aquired.

[Brown Patrick Bateman]

(Original post by jamierwilliams)
You become an associate once you have 3-5 years experience. For M&A this is normally after you have taken your MBA, whereas for a sales/trading role you tend not to take an MBA.

In training, all our new associates for sales/trading had done MBAs, and prior to that 3yrs experience normally in a different field (IBD, consultancy etc). So I think MBA is still needed if you want to start S&T at associate level, though if you've done it for 2-3yrs as an analyst then you can go straight in.

[JrW]

(Original post by Chassez)
In training, all our new associates for sales/trading had done MBAs, and prior to that 3yrs experience normally in a different field (IBD, consultancy etc). So I think MBA is still needed if you want to start S&T at associate level, though if you've done it for 2-3yrs as an analyst then you can go straight in.

Yep that's exactly what I meant (sorry for not be too clear!)

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Just out of interest, do many analyst traders do an MBA to improve thier prospects when climbing the managerial ladder in the latter stages of their career?

[Brown Patrick Bateman]

(Original post by jamierwilliams)
Just out of interest, do many analyst traders do an MBA to improve thier prospects when climbing the managerial ladder in the latter stages of their career?

Very few I would imagine. After 2-3 years as a trader, even if not kept on at their current bank it shouldn't be hard to gain an associate position elsewhere. For traders, the management hierarchy is near purely performance driven up to VP/Director level, and leaving the trading floor for 2yrs to do an MBA could actually do more harm than good.

[JrW]

(Original post by Chassez)
Very few I would imagine. After 2-3 years as a trader, even if not kept on at their current bank it shouldn't be hard to gain an associate position elsewhere. For traders, the management hierarchy is near purely performance driven up to VP/Director level, and leaving the trading floor for 2yrs to do an MBA could actually do more harm than good.

So do many traders make it up to the higher echelons of the bank or is this mainly for the M&A people?

By the way, how is it going at Deutsche Bank?

[Brown Patrick Bateman]

(Original post by AlphaX)
So do many traders make it up to the higher echelons of the bank or is this mainly for the M&A people?

By the way, how is it going at Deutsche Bank?

If you look at the structure of a bank's top-level management, it tends to be division-based, eg our Executive Committee comprises of heads of different areas of the bank. Only the very top President/CEO-level position(s) would oversee the entire business. They're not necessarily from an M&A background - it may depend on where the bank in question's key business areas are.
Work is good, really like the atmosphere of the trading floor, but still in rotations on the grad scheme and find out in February where I'll be full-time.

[JrW]

Good luck with everything...I'd like to be in your position in a few year time!