Love on Park Avenue - Namjoohyuk

Episode 1.3 The Banking War

October 1, 2005

No one had said getting into investment banking was like fighting in a war. Annie complained to herself as she rode the Q train from 8th street. She felt as if she was like a soldier in training, not ready for the battlefield. She had a gut feeling that she was unprepared but didn't know what. She did her research on Lehman. She went through all the recent financial news for the dinner table conversation. She memorized all the interview talking points.  But somehow she knew in her gut that if this was a real battle,  she would surely die from a surprise attack. 

The dinner was at a fancy steak house called Del Frisco's on 53rd and 9th avenue. This was the place where bankers, lawyers, and other power players took their clients to seal the deal. She rarely traveled north beyond Union Square so she never had heard of this place before dinner. Mistake one. She hadn't done the due diligence on the restaurant. She had no idea what to order. 

When she entered the restaurant, she noticed ten students chatting with Lehman bankers already. Mistake two. She should have arrived earlier to figure out who to sit next to.  They were near the bar, waiting for the table. 

Their eyes fixated on their target, watching every move like a sniper ready to attack. These kids were fearless and focused one thing — to get into investment banking. She recognized some faces from her Finance class. She did not know them personally. Why didn't she make more friends in her classes? Mistake three. She didn't get to know the enemy that well.  The guys looked so polished with ironed shirts, tailored suits, and brand new ties. 

She immediately regretted not looking more professional. Mistake four. Her hair was too long for investment banking standards and it was still damp. She had not have time to blow dry it so she had tied my hair with a cheap hair clip. She forgot to put on stockings on and realized she had not shaved her legs. Worse, the Winter dry air had caused white flakes on her dry legs. The last bit of her self-esteem was crushed when she noticed the girl next to her. She was wearing a light blue dress suit with a matching set of Mikimoto pearl earrings and necklace. Her shoulder-length hair was curled in like massage balls. She had obviously stopped at a hair salon before coming to dinner. Annie noticed a fresh coat of french manicured nails when the girl was tossing her hair to the side. 

"Oh sh*t. I'm screwed." Annie lamented her impending fate and stood in the middle pondering which conversation she should jump into that could save her from her downward luck. The noise level at the restaurant made it hard to hear what anybody was saying.

The place was stuffed with men and women in tailored suits. It was so strange to see them talking and laughing. Did no one else have any problem with the noise?  Annie felt left out and depressed. By now, her inner turmoil had destroyed the last bit of her confidence. Her armpits drenched in sweat. Mistake five. Forgot to wear deodorant. 

Should she try to strike a conversation with one of the students? But they were her competition. Besides, why would they waste their time on her when they could be talking to their future employer?

Del Frisco's was in the heart of Manhattan's Corporate Row. Surrounded by glass on all three sides, it had a ceiling higher than most of the building lobbies. From onion ring towers to the steaks that almost touched the bellies of men, everything was huge. The juicy aroma permeated through the vents teasing the palates of nearby tourists.

"We come here for our closing dinners," said one of the bankers as soon as we sat down in a large round table. He was in his mid-thirties with a thinning brown hair with glasses. His ramblings about the corporate culture reminded Annie of the same boring spiel she heard multiple times. 

"Have you been here before? You look a little lost." He stopped talking and the students who were listening to him shifted their attention to Annie.

"I don't know what I should order," she remarked, looking up from the menu.

He started laughing. "Trust me. The steaks are awesome here. You have to get the bone-in Double Eagle Wagyu steak. It's their specialty. "

Another banker explained the role of an analyst in the leveraged finance group. Annie couldn't help but drift off again towards other tables. She wondered what the people in the other tables did that made them look so powerful. 

Twenty minutes later, plates of giant steaks and onion towers arrived.  It was excellent but she was too nervous to enjoy it. She could only finish half my steak  and wanted to ask for a box but decided she doesn't want the bankers to think she was being cheap and there not a culture fit.  

Instead, she decided to stop by Mamoun's, her favorite shawarma shop on Macdougal and West 4th. For $5, she could get thin juicy slabs of lamb meat and extra spicy hot sauce. Tasted much better than the steak. 

For the second round interviews, she created a cheat sheet with interview questions. She also signed up for a two-day Investment Banking Bootcamp offered by NYU.

Annie spent two days creating pro forma financial statements from Campbell Soup's 10K and learned how to do the NPV (Net Present Value), IRR (Internal Rate of Return) and Comps (Comparables) models. But what was really the most educational tip was learning to format the models faster using only Excel short cut keys.

The instructor, Josh, handed out laminated cheat sheets for excel short cut keys. He said faster formatting can mean going home at 12 am as opposed to 2 am. Annie wrote down 'memorize short cuts' in her notebook and put a star next to it.

"Remember, once you touch a model, it's yours." said Josh. He was a Princeton grad and an ex-Merrill Lynch associate. He told the class how once he helped an analyst with a model because the original author was on vacation. "I figured I help the poor guy because he sucked. But later, a VP pulled me aside and told me to update the model on a Friday night for a presentation on Monday," he said.

"I told the dude, but it's not my model. I touched one sheet, " the students watched him in horror.

"The VP said, doesn't matter, you fixed it last time. It's yours now." His eyes opened wide and he pointed his finger at a random student for emphasis.

"So I ended up spending the entire weekend fixing the damn thing. " He rolled his eyes.

He ended the class with one last tip.

"When you are printing out the pitch books, make sure you staple the top left corner at 45 degrees angle. If you staple vertically, the pages will rip and you will get yelled at. And don't hog a printer for the flipbooks. Go around the entire floor and know where all the printers are. Good luck to you all. I hope you get a position in the 2006 analyst class. See you again during the IBD training program!"

Annie didn't mind that she had to spend the entire weekend cooped up in a basement classroom. While waiting for her offer, she read Liar's Poker and Monkey Business. She knew she had it this tine — her dream was finally going to come true. Two slow weeks passed and she received a phone call from Lehman Brothers Human Resources.

"Annie? This is Morgan from Lehman Brothers. Thank you for interviewing for a position in the analyst class of 2006. You are a very strong candidate but as you know we have limited space every year. Unfortunately, the majority of our summer interns from last year accepted our offers. This decreased the number of new candidates we can accept from NYU." Annie's heart sank. Another failure. What does she do now?

"The good news is that we found another position within Lehman Brothers. Given your strong computer science background, this is a good fit for you." 

"Ok great! What's the position?"

"The position is CMBS collateral analyst. It's part of the Global Real Estate Group. Are you interested in real estate at all?" asked Morgan from HR.

"Umm....sorry, could you repeat that again? I don't think I heard..."

"CMBS collateral analyst. I will send you the description. They want to interview you"

"Sure. I can interview next week." Anything that had Global in it must be good right? She thought. 

"Great! I will send you the details. "

Two hours later, Annie received an email with a description of the position and the location of the interviews.