Career Path Options for Prospective Investment Bankers

Jan 2022

If you are seeking an opportunity in a fast-paced environment where you can learn a wide variety of skills and advise clients on mergers and acquisitions as well as raising debt and equity, investment banking might be right for you. Investment banking careers can be demanding, but also provide the opportunity to collaborate and engage with executives early in your career. Additionally, if you possess an entrepreneurial spirit, you will be able to better problem-solve for clients alongside your colleagues.

When starting as an analyst or associate, there are many career growth opportunities available. Depending on your interests, there are also several paths you can follow within one, or more, of the many services offered by an investment bank. At a high level, some of the qualities of successful bankers within each offering include:

Summary

Mergers & Acquisitions

M&A bankers provide sell-side advisory services to founders, entrepreneurs and institutional investors, such as private equity firms, to obtain maximum value from their clients’ investments. They also provide buy-side advisory services where they help clients identify investments that align with their strategies and drive growth. M&A bankers advise on mergers where they leverage relationships and industry expertise to bring complementary organizations together.

Capital Advisory

Capital advisory bankers work on a variety of capital raising assignments and advise clients on how to best fund their businesses given their unique circumstances. That can include raising debt capital from investors to help fund acquisitions, refinance existing debt and fund one-time dividends or securing minority capital or growth equity to support a variety of growth initiatives.

Private Funds Advisory

Bankers on the private funds advisory team support private equity firms and other investment professionals’ growth objectives by creating tailored private capital solutions and assisting with capital raising. These personalized and dynamic solutions stretch across all aspects of fundraising—namely, single asset investment vehicles, primary funds, coinvest vehicles and structured/continuation vehicles.

Special Situations & Restructuring

Areas of engagement for restructuring and special situations focused investment bankers include financial restructuring and Chapter 11 advisory services, liability management, distressed M&A, creditor advisory services and capital raising.

Valuations & Opinions

Responsibilities of investment bankers focused on valuations include portfolio valuations to increase compliance and transparency, business valuations that are steeped in practical market knowledge and transaction opinions that offer objective financial advice to multiple types of stakeholders.

At Lincoln International, employees at every level are empowered to lead. Analysts and associates are not only preparing written materials that describe investment opportunities, creating financial models and conducting industry research, but they are also given the opportunity to interact with clients early in their tenure. They work alongside colleagues who are highly collegial, collaborative and supportive with a strong commitment to trust and integrity. By elevating junior employees at Lincoln, each individual is able to develop hard and soft skills as well as relationships that will be instrumental to their long-term success.

To learn more about careers at Lincoln and current open positions, visit www.lincolninternational.com/careers.

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