For the first time ever, I am sharing my secret sauce of how to answer the dreaded investment banking question - Pitch me a stock or commonly known in the banking circles as the three minute elevator pitch .
After spending more than a decade in investment banking and having received offers from the likes of UBS, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and Barclays, I can confirm first-hand that the finesse with which I answered this question was probably the single most important factor in landing the job offers that I did.
If you would like to see a real application of this then send your CV to info@cityinvestmenttraining.com with subject "2 days investment course" and get the course (worth £1,000 for free)
This question will pop up nine out of ten times if you are applying for an Equity Research/Asset Management/Portfolio Management or Sales/Trading jobs and has also been known to feature heavily on entry-level M&A interviews.
Below I put together the five-point structure of the elevator pitch which was taught to me at a bulge bracket bank and has never failed me in all of my interviews since.
The five bullet points of a bulge bracket stock pitch:
1. Overview of the company (What the company does, market share, CEO and performance of stock since he took over)
2. Three key drivers of revenue and profitability
3. Financials
4. Risk
5. Valuations and stock rating.
Two additional tips:
1. Lace your pitch with numbers: Make sure to throw at least five numbers about the company in the pitch. Example: Mastercard is the second largest card network company in the world with c. 35% market share of the global payment volume. Even though a challenger to Visa (with 45% market share) we see Mastercard as the best in class card network company as.....
2. Pick a well-known company: I once pitched Unite Student Properties when interviewing with Morgan Stanley and even though the interviewer was impressed by the structure and my numerical knowledge about the company he had no further questions for me. Cant blame the guy he had no idea about Student Properties or even worse in his fifties was just not interested in a university student housing company with a yield of 6% and ROI of more than 100% in the past three years. Damn what a waste of air time to impress him!!
Expect counter questioning: One of the head of research at a bulge bracket bank converted my three-minute elevator pitch into a 30 mins conversation because he went into and broke down every sentence of my stock pitch. Since I knew the stock well I was glad he did. One of the best counter questions I received at another bulge bracket bank was Sameer so after all of that (on the stock) can you tell me what is it that you saw in the stock that the market has missed because of which the stock is undervalued. Reply - rephrase the drivers of growth and say that the market just does not appreciate the double-digit growth prospects that the company enjoys – especially when compared to its peers which are trading at higher-multiples despite coupled with lower growth prospects. :)
If you would like to learn more about valuations and how to use this format and pitch a real-life stock please join us for our Free two-day course (worth £1,000) on Financial Modelling by sending us your CV to info@cityinvestmenttraining.com with Subject “Two days Investment course”.
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