Summer Analyst Review

As an investment banking summer analyst I advise companies on mergers and acquisitions and raising financing for their business operations. On a day-to-day basis this translates to working on marketing materials to pitch clients on strategic options such as M&A and financing to win mandates for live deals. When on a live deal you advise the client on a transaction by for example completing valuation analyses, market and competitor research,, guiding the client through the whole transaction process by managing several workflows with other advisors involved, such as lawyers and consultants.

This internship has helped me to develop my communication and interpersonal skills by working in a team-based environment with people of different levels of seniority and different cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, I have significantly improved my technical and analytical skills by completing valuation analyses, such as DCF, LBO, trading and transaction comparables in Excel and analyzing companies, markets, industries and investors. Moreover, I have developed my time and project management skills by working on multiple projects at the same time, sometimes under significant time pressure.

During my internship I was given much responsibility by the team that I interned in. I was heavily involved in creating materials which would actually be presented to clients. The quality of this work had to be perfect as for example displayed by showcasing a coherent story line in presentations. Moreover, I was responsible for assisting the team in live deals by for example helping out with administrative work. Lastly, we had to build a whole pitch for a client from scratch fairly independently with limited guidance from the team.

During the internship we received significant amounts of guidance, especially from the juniors in the team. They were very helpful in terms of explaining new concepts and always took the time to review our work. After reviewing they would give constructive feedback on how to improve. They were also very approachable when you needed help. As part of the internship we were assigned both a mentor and a buddy which helped in terms of navigating the business.

The company culture and general atmosphere could be described as friendly, team-oriented and approachable. The people at the firm are very open to you approaching them and there is overall a very friendly culture. I have not had any instances of people responding in a toxic way to me. Throughout the internship HR organized a lot of events for interns, such as socials and career-specific session. Outside of the HR organized events, teams would organize social activities so that interns are involved in building up social connections within the firm in a non-work environment.

I really enjoyed my internship. The work itself was very interesting as the work you do can have a real impact on client's businesses as investment banking transactions are often some of the most important events in a company's history. The team was very friendly and the company culture was very social with interns even socializing outside of work. The internship met my expectations as I learned a lot from being in such a fast-paced environment with a steep learning curve. If given the opportunity to come back, I would definitely take the offer.

Yes

If you wish to apply to Nomura, make sure you understand where Nomura is located in the landscape of investment banks and what differentiates the banks from other banks. For example, Nomura is involved in a lot of cross-border deals, mostly with Japan, where they are one of the largest banks. Moreover, Nomura is balance sheet driven and is excellent in Greentech, Industrials and Infrastructure which punches above its weight in terms of league tables. For the assessment centre make sure that you have prepared the typical technical questions you can expect in investment banking interviews and make sure you know why you want do investment banking.