Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Pitchbooks and Endless Research

One of the main tasks that I have as a summer intern is creating pitch books. Pitch books is a marketing presentation used by investment banks to highlight the firm’s key values and what services they can deliver to their client. These pitch books are used as one of the key determinants to distinguish between different investment banks and who the companies will give their business to. A key method in which companies determine which investment bank is better is by how much the investment bank understands about their company and the industry they are in. If one investment bank has more knowledge and insight into the company, then the deal is given to them.

This is where one of my main role comes in as a summer analyst. As a summer analyst, I am given the task to conduct significant industry analysis, scan for buyers and investors and create some public company comparables and multiples transactions comparables. I never thought I would learn so much in depth about different niche industries. These niche industries I learned about range from technology to industrial to consumer goods products. It is definitely a challenge to search for these niche industries and try to learn as much possible in just one day but it is the most fun part of my internship as well. After I finish a pitch book, I look back and am amazed how much I learned and know about an industry. In regards to searching for buyers and investors, I realized how important it was to be detail oriented in investment banking. Every single description has to be read and double checked to make sure that they are investing in the right industry. I learn so much about what each private equity or strategic buyer specializes in and that makes the work all worthwhile. Lastly, the public company comparables and multiples transactions comparables are one of the most interesting aspects of the pitch book. I am able to see how many similar competitors there are in one industry and how much firms are willing to pay to acquire one company. Just by looking at these comparables, it is interesting to see how much a company is valued.

Pitch books are definitely one of the most interesting aspects about my internship and my mind is opening up to more and more knowledge about investment banking through the pitch books.