What you need to know about IBD in Asia

Just want to add some observations for HK:

• Yes, they take summer analysts from local universities too (CUHK, HKU, HKUST in no particular order)
• Chinese / Mandarin is a "must" but sometimes exceptions can be made for Korean / Japanese speakers

Thanks for sharing @Dealova" !

Singapore - they will take mostly local grads at the analyst level. Post-MBA associates will be mostly from US schools, not much love for Int'l schools. Focus will mostly be debt/equity placements and some M&A (not as much as you seem to think). They will always advertise as Mandarin or SE-Asian 'preferred' but it's a long shot if you don't speak one at a native level and they won't be shy about making assumptions based on your name/ethnicity. You can get in on just English but it will be a hustle

There are a few firms / groups at HK that don't require you to speak Mandarin/Cantonese, a number of groups at Morgan Stanley speak English almost all the time.

I spent a short period of time in hk and i guess i can share a bit of my observations

Us grads represent the largest % of the class (undergrad + masters with chinese uni undergrad combined), china uni and local big 3 comes second (most are chinese students rather than local hker though)

Uk schools are not so represented except at a few European shops

Hours are pretty long but team dependent, and i cant say much

Pay as analysts are quite standard but difference can be huge at associate or above, analyst at most shops with structured recruiting pays the same (7k base + 2k housing prebonus), except for one or two banks

Chinese and mandarin is not a must if u are a korean, but in general being a native chinese is more preferable to a hker or an amateur mandarin learner. Lots of translation as a junior and u need to write and speak well mandarin, which is a hard task for non native chinese

Yes, quite a lot of ipo but the market is shrinking so there may not be so many mega ipos in the future. Chinese banks (cicc citic etc.) are competing aggressively and u can check out the recent bloomberg or wsj news on asia ib revenue

And u do get quite a lot of interaction if u work at a top bb here.

Sorry for the poor formatting, typed on my phone

Oh btw, although the stock market in china is in Shanghai, banks and mega funds in china are mostly located in beijing and only a few bb have significant presence there

Great breakdown- thank you! Would love to see something similar for Switzerland/France/Germany.

Naoki Hanzawa

HK - generally the expectation and practice is for Analysts to stay 3 years, not 2, before going to the buy-side (at least that's been the experience of all my friends who did their analyst stints in Hong Kong). It seems the thinking is it's better to be promoted to Associate before heading off to you next endeavor.

I'm at a BB in Hong Kong (think JPM/MS/GS) and agree with pretty much all that has been said already. In terms of Mandarin, it is a must for all juniors to be native speakers with essentially all product and industry juniors can read and write Chinese at our bank.

Confirmed what other users say in that the hours are worse here than in NYC. Environment is also less bro/frat culture with most of your colleagues being really serious with their heads glued to their monitors and not a lot of joking or messing around, even later into the night when MDs aren't around.

Total comp (at junior levels) is lower here than in NYC mainly due to taxes (income taxes here are bt 15-17%).

A great aspect here in HK is that you get a lot more client interaction than in NYC at the junior ranks (I know of some 2nd/3rd year analysts having regular dialogue with clients). This is mostly a function of the deal teams being significantly smaller and and so you aren't just a cog in the machine and aren't siloed onto a specific part of the transaction. With this you get to understand the transaction process more holistically but the downside is, you may be a bit less technically capable than some of my peers (this is my personal experience) in NYC. I'm fine with this to be honest as I enjoy helping my VP run the transaction, see where the bottle necks are in the process, making sure the strategic rationale is on point than being a DCF expert to the nth degree (there are diminishing returns for being an excel monkey as you progress through the ranks)

And now the lost important part, the night life. The night life in HK is fantastic with great raucous bars and clubs in LKF And Wyndham street (tilted towards the 20-late 20s age range) and also low key lounges and bars in central/Soho And sheung wan areas. Then there are those nights you want to be debaucherous and you pull all nighters in Wanchai.

The biggest downside of HK is that it's expensive as fuck to live here with rent as expensive as NYC but the flats are 10-15% smaller, but you make up for the COL for the low taxes jurisdiction.

All in all HK is a great place to start your career and to grow it if you want to focus on China and can speak Mandarin.

Region: CLMV (ASEAN) Function: IBD Coverage Group Client Base: Mostly large local corporates (LLCs) and large SME (small & medium enterprises). Function: Capital Markets (IPO, OTC/Pink Sheet, RTO, Project Finance), Corporate Finance (M&A, Restructuring, Government Privatization), Principal Investing (Merchant Banking) Main Sectors: Generalist (Consumer, Real Estate, Industrial, FIG); most Southeast Asian bankers will be expected to cover at least 3-4 sectors. Same thing with my friends in Hong Kong, Singapore, and China. Hours: 9-5pm (Monday to Friday) but if you count wining and dinning clients, golf sessions, business trips, informal catch up sessions over the weekends then I probably end up working 6 days a week, average 12 hours per day Staff Demographic: oversea returnees, big four advisory, speak local language + English + Chinese Career Progression: Intern > Analyst > Associate > Senior Associate > VP > Associate Director > Director > MD > Department Head > Executive Director > Partner Unique Thing about my Firm: is a family office backed investment bank under their financial services group > so we end up advising the group businesses as well > and also do direct investment on behalf of the family office Exit Strategy: 1) salaryman > move to Director, 2) move to PE, 3) move to client side as CEO/CFO, 4) buy share in the company to become a partner and 5) set up my own fund

So basically there's no way to work in Asia if you only know European languages? What about other financial jobs besides IBD? How are the language requirements in Singapore?

There are a large number of relationship hires in Asia eg "We'll hire your ne'ER do well son in return for you promising to mandate us on your IPO".

At a junior level, this means you can commonly be working alongside muppets. You can then be hit with the curse of competency - if you're the only competent analyst in a team of 3 - 4 other analysts who are dumbshits with good family connections, then you end up doing all the work.

In Hong Kong/China, at least, there is also a lot less collegiality and a lot more zero-sum-game thinking, backstabbing and other unpleasant behaviour. This generally fits the management strategy commonly used in China culture where there is an emperor with multiple princelings with overlapping territories, constantly at war with each other and jostling for the favour of the emperor. The emperor himself is paranoid that a princeling will take over, so this strategy works well for him. And many relationship bankers in China IBD are nothing if not venal characters tempered by paranoia and suspicion.

Combine both these considerations and you can find yourself not only doing all the work due to the curse of competency, but then seeing others claim credit for your work and stabbing you in the back.

If you grew up in the culture, you'd probably see this as a rational system. If you've grown up in the West (even if you're ethnically Chinese), you can find it frustrating, even if you've read the Art of War and think you get it.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is better guide to the personalities you'll meet in Chinese business than the Art of War.

The hours are absolutely brutal. Chinese culture is all about hard work and it shows. These are people who went to regular school plus cram school for 12 hours a day since they were in middle school. Banking is just an extension of their school life. They know how to grind and work hard.

We were advising a large PE client and they were ridiculously demanding. Impossible tasks are given at 5pm for completion by tomorrow morning almost daily. The guys running the deal on their end came out of the same HK IB system, and they have come to expect this level of work from their advisers because they went through it themselves.

Banking has enough menial tasks, but translating takes the term menial to the next level. It's boring as hell. There is no financial analysis or critical thinking. You are literally working as a linguist. Sometimes you can outsource the work to a translation company, but they charge by the character and it's expensive. A full 50 page presentation could end up costing something like a grand (you may be able to bill it to the client but not every MD is willing to do that).

You need to be a native speaker. The ideal person is someone who finished high school in Asia before going to a top U.S. or U.K. university. That way, you get the best of both worlds. I find a lot of senior bankers there speak English with a Mandarin accent. That's how good your Mandarin has to be. If you left Asia when in you were in elementary school, your Mandarin probably isn't good enough.

Back in the day you could get by without speaking any Mandarin. A lot of banks were staffed with Europeans and Americans who got by because they had a big brand behind them and supposedly brought in an international perspective. They could teach the local Asian companies how blue chip international firms did business. Nowadays, most of that knowledge is widespread and you actually have to know Mandarin to build relationships and win business. I have heard from people at a few different banks that there is a slow "purge" of non-Mandarin speakers in mid-to-senior level roles who are being replaced with people who can speak Mandarin.

Another interesting note is that Analysts are frequently seconded on site to work directly with the client. That way, the client can directly oversee the Analyst's work and also use him/her to help put out any day-to-day fires or menial tasks that they don't want to do. The client's site could be in Hong Kong where you can just walk across the street. Or, you could be seconded to some random city in China where you work out of a suitcase for a few weeks. I've heard of one case where the client demanded the bank send four analysts. Two work in the day from 9am to 9pm, and two work at night from 9pm to 9am. The night crew receives instructions from the client before they go home at 9pm, and turn in the work the next morning. They literally have the bankers work around the clock. Brutal.

What about S&T in HK?

I am just curious--is there a significant different among BB in HK in terms of exit opportunities to PE? And is it better to start in IB then transit to PE or start in PE directly?

One more thing to add for Shanghai/China: The stock market (more blue chips) is in Shanghai, ChiNext and SMEs are in Shenzhen.

Was wondering if any could provide some info on summer associate recruitment in Hong Kong. Given the fact that a lot of associates in hk ibd were a-a promotes, does that mean that there are less summer associate spots for hong kong? Also, what are the target MBA programs?

Singapore also has a wider set of target schools per se. You dont see too many Ivy League people but many top BB spots are filled by top UK Schools (Oxford/Cambridge/LSE/possibly Imperial and Warwick)