William Glass gave a guest lecture on April 25, 2017 that will be hard to sum up simply because he covered so many aspects of corporate advisory and asset management. He described the process of developing ideas, pitch books and financial models so that the C-level executives can receive clear, concise, persuasive suggestions on how to grow, shrink, and change the nature of their business or competitive position. In contrast to larger financial services organizations that interface with several different aspects of a client’s business, William and his team and their other Perella Weinberg Partners colleagues provide specialized nuanced advice.
William has personally worked on so many financial models that he is able to review work done by his analyst or associate and quickly figure out if there are mistakes or misconceptions. He also understands how craft models that can be adjusted to reflect anticipated client concerns without making catastrophic changes. People in his firm use modular design principles so that it is easy to recognize which parts of the model belong to which train of thought. They also use the same file format over and over again, use of templates saves them from tediously replicating similar analyses.
An important take-away is that financial modelers are storytellers, they try to explain what could happen given certain assumptions. Consequently it is important to put the assumptions for each of the model’s sheets at the very top.
William shared many “best practices” with us. Of particular interest is the color coding of cells:
These vary a little from bank to bank, but blue, green, and black are pretty much always the same. On the graph above, the “Key Inputs” should be blue text with a yellow background. Most of the data providers we use have built in tools to make hotkeys for the coloring. The standard ones I’m familiar with are FactSet (which we use), CapIQ, and Bloomberg.
(William Glass, Personal Communication, April 26, 2017)
In case you are interested in working for Perella Weinberg Partners, here is an outline of what entry level analysts do:
Analysis
- Analyzing historical performance and management projections
- Valuation
- Transaction modelling
Presentation preparation
- Creating pitch books, board and investor presentations
- Organizing content
Research
- Researching companies and investors
- Conducting due diligence
Administrative work
- Process management for live deals
Associate and senior banker jobs are a bit different. Generally more idea generation and relationship management, but tend to rely on the same documents and processes.
(William Glass, Personal Communication, April 26, 2017)