INVESTMENT BANKING by Joshua Rosenbaum & Joshua Pearl
Authors: Joshua Pearl is the founder and CIO of Hickory Lane Capital Management and has previous investment banking experience at UBS, DB and Moelis. Joshua Rosenbaum is a Managing Director and Head of Industrials at RBC having previous experience at UBS.
Book: The book, as its title suggests, is a complete explanation of what an investment bank does, focusing on the analyst’s tasks. It explains valuation (Public Comparable, Precedent Transactions and Discounted Cash Flows), Leveraged Buyouts, the M&A process (both the buy-side and the sell-side), and ends with Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). This last chapter is new in the third edition. After purchasing the book, you can also access an online course on valuation and excel files with valuation, M&A and LBO models.
Opinion: In my view, this book is the best resource for those looking to get an internship / full-time position in Investment Banking (the guides of BIWS and WSO are also great). It gives you ~95% of the theoretical knowledge you need to pass a technical interview. The bad thing about it is that it does not provide good reasoning behind what it is being done – one can read the book multiple times, pass almost all the technical interviews, and still not understand valuation. I would recommend Valuation by McKinsey / Damodaran on Valuation for those who really want to understand the logic/philosophy behind it. For the job itself, the book could be somewhat useful, but it is not a requirement at all. At the end of the day, most tasks given to juniors in IBD are not very complex, i.e. rearranging logos, updating spreadsheets, taking notes, etc. They do not pay you to think, just execute, be quick and error-free in the tasks you are given (bonus: hide your discontent when the tasks you are given are an insult to intelligence). If someone wants the 2nd edition for free, give me an email address and I'll send the PDF.
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