1. 什么是投资银行(业)( what is investment banking )

An investment bank is a financial institution that raises capital, trades in securities and manages corporate mergers and acquisitions(就这两部分).

 

Investment banks profit from companies and governments by raising money through issuing and selling securities in capital markets (both equity, debt) and insuring bonds (e.g. selling credit default swaps),

 

As well as providing advice on transactions such as mergers and acquisitions. A majority of investment banks offer strategic advisory services for mergers, acquisitions, divestiture or other financial services for clients, such as the trading of derivatives, fixed income, foreign exchange, commodity, and equity securities.

 

2. 几大投行( 前五名) ( top 5 investment banks) :

1) Goldman Sachs
2) Morgan Stanley
3) JP Morgan
4) Deutsche Bank
5) Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch

 

3. 高盛的一些简介 ( brief intro to GS ) :

Marcus Goldman (December 9, 1821 – July 20, 1904): founder of GS 德国裔犹太人.

 

Goldman is a major dealer in securities, offers its clients mergers & acquisitions advice, underwriting services, asset management, and engages in proprietary trading, and private equity deals. It is a primary dealer in the U.S. Treasury securities market.

 

Former Goldman Sachs employees Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson served as United States Secretary of the Treasury after leaving the firm; Rubin under President Clinton and Paulson under George W. Bush.( 布什与克林顿的两任财政部长)

 

4

a) .从金融危机来临开始,高盛近期的大事件( security trading events的部分) :  

Actions in the 2007- subprime mortgage crisis. Despite the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis, Goldman was able to profit from the collapse in subprime mortgage bonds in the summer of 2007 by selling subprime mortgage-backed securities short.

 

Actions in the 2008 - Goldman Sachs got help from Berkshire Hathaway, which bought $5 billion in Goldman's preferred stock, and also got warrants to buy another $5 billion in Goldman's common stock. [11] Goldman also received $10 billion of capital from the U.S. government in October 2008, under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

 

 

In late Sept .2008 , Goldman sachs made an announcement that it would transfer to a bank holding company( along with MS ).

 

As of June 22, 2009, the company was on track to complete its "most profitable year ever"

As of third quarter 2009 Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s (GS) (ended Sept. 25, 2009) earnings of $5.25 per share were significantly ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.13.

 

Involvement with the bailout of AIG:    In the ensuing months as AIG's obligations to counterparties were being unwound, Goldman Sachs was the largest single recipient of this money (USD 12.9B).  The firm was protected by hedges (in the form of credit default swaps with other counterparties) and USD 7.5B of collateral on this deal . The total cost of this hedge is over USD 100M.

 

b) 从金融危机来临开始,高盛近期的大事件 ( M & A event 部分).

这里基本只用关注最近一件 :

9月21号:  GS Capital Partners VI Fund LP acquires a minority stake in Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd (pending) ( 高盛注资中国的吉利汽车)

In the world market , due to the impact of financial crisis the total number of m&a events fall sharply 41% this year .

 

5. 高盛的operation department和你应该会去做些什么( wat u will do in operation department ) :

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/careers/our-firm/divisions/operations/what-we-do/index.html

参见以上网址.

简述:

Risk Management & Execution

Innovation & Process Improvement

Client Relationship Management

Building Teams & Managing Processes

将来你会做以上事件中的一件或者几件, 详细内容看我给你的这个地址.

 

6. 面试投行我觉得必须该掌握的一些知识( 这部分是参考校内上一个面试GS被录取的人的, 觉得应该很有用--- 专为第一轮面试打造) ( some probable fisrt round interview quesitons )

一些General/behavioural questions:

- Why investment banking? - 百分之百会被问到的！ (a harder version - why IB/M&A but not management consulting? by Macquarie) - i said - after winning the campus round of the JPMorgan IB competition, i enjoy the work that you do - i.e. research + analysis + strategy ---> utilising the stuff you have learnt in uni....also, say that you love working in a team with ambitious and motivated people!!!

- Why our firm? （要了解他们的公司，要突出他们公司的优势 - small firm: a small team allows you to take greater responsibility etc etc; larger firm: big corp affords grad the opportunity to transfer divisionally & geographically etc etc）

-一般来说Behavioural的问题占了75%

 

一些technical questions :

- How do you value a company? - answer: DCF, multiples, sum of all parts, real options etc

- What are the line items in a DCF model? - answer: NI(1-tax)+Dep-Capex-change in WC

- Who do you get beta? - answer: bloomberg info - take regression

- What if it is a private company, so how to get the beta? - answer: bottom-up beta - i.e. using comparable firm's betas etc 

- How to get WACC? - straight forward question

- Which multiple is good? answer: depends on industry

- Why PE ratio isn't great? answer: capital structure differences and growth opportunities and etc etc etc...

- When will a M&A transation be PE dilutive/accretive? - answer: cash offer --> EPS accretive etc etc 

- Which of the follow asset is more suitable for a LBO transaction? - Tollway or an IT company? Answer: Toll-way - stable CF and lower business risk - therefore, can increase the financing risk by doing LBOs

- What is 199 X 198 equal to? 

More and more........some are really really hard.....

有些technical的问题很难，如果真的不懂的话就说没学过，千万不要在这时候Bullshit

 

7. 最后, 补充点这次金融危机的背景知识 ( some background info for this financial crisis ) :

crisis flow :

CDS(credit default swap) default -----Fannie mae & Freddie mac fail ---- investment banks and insurance companies ( aig& lehman brother ) fail ----- banks fail ----- world wide financial economic crisis ----- real economy influenced

What we learn from the crisis :

Complicated derivatives( such as CDS ) should be used in a more organized way under some further regulations.

We also have to think twice about the existing financial system( 从很多方面, 市场监管( markets regulation)与 信息披露( information disclosure) 方面, 员工待遇过高( sky-high compensation)方面, 金融衍生品应用( regulations on financial derivatives) 方面, 包括政府立法方面…)

OK , 我大概短时间能整理起来的也就这么多，尽量想让这篇文章形成一个体系，但必定有疏漏的地方，希望多少能帮到些.

GOOD LUCK

in your GS interview and other interviews !!!