Best way to move from Big Four Audit to IB/ER/PE

I’m currently working at a Big Four in audit (London) and I’m in the final year of my ACA training contract. I’ve also got some financial analyst experience in industry prior to this (including modelling, forecasting, etc) and I’ve done CFA Level 1 and will probably attempt L2 in June.

What I’d like to know is if my goal is to work in IB (or buy/sell side equity research or private equity), what is the best way of getting there from where I am now?

I’ve thought that a direct jump, though possible and people have done it, is a bit of a stretch so I’ll try to move internally within my firm (this should be quite likely to succeed) first to a Corporate Finance/modelling department and then try and apply from there to banks/boutiques/funds as I’ll have some more relevant experience under my belt.

How does that sound? Or does anyone have any better recommendations?

Reply 1

KLL

Yeah, you'll want to spend some time in transaction services or corporate finance first

Reply 2

ollye

I think some time in TAS or CFA team would help, but I know a few people who have gone straight to IB/PE from Audit. Many of the MM PE firms specifically ask for ACA qualified applicants (some without transaction experience provided you can nail the technicals from the CFA and other stuff) so you might want to check out that. There are a couple of good threads on WSO that cover this which may help further:

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/cpa-big-4-audit-advisory-ibd-or-other-top-5-mba-pathway
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/big-4-audit-to-mofo-ib

Reply 3

snakesnake

Original post by ollye

Thanks for your reply. I'll definitely give it a shot, I do have financial modelling experience which I know most people in audit are not familiar with. However as it originates from about 3 years ago, I'm not sure if that's too relevant any more.

I'll give applications to banks/funds a shot in any case but my default course of action would be to get into CF/TS.