What is The Best Way To Start A Career in Investment Banking? 

April 13, 2018

While it is no secret that Investment Banking has forever been, one of the most alluring fields, especially with the sophistication and grace that stock exchange and the Wall Street have both gathered, in the recent few years. 

To begin with, we should perhaps be clear about what Investment Banking is.  For instance, not everyone who works for Goldman Sachs or Edelweiss is an Investment Banker engaging in Investment Banking.  Investment banking roles can also be found across different types of companies.  While the most popular investment banking jobs are found at Bulge Bracket Investment Banks like JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, they can also be found in the Investment Banking units of commercial banks like ICICI Bank and Citibank.  They are also found in smaller regional firms like Avendus Capital and Jeffries or more sector focused banks like Piper Jaffray.  These are often called Boutique Banks in India and middle-market banks around the globe. 

Investment Banking jobs can also be found in large private Equity institutions like Blackstone.  But an area a lot of people completely ignore is similar Investment Banking career paths at corporate firms like Reliance and Mahindra & Mahindra, large Multinational companies that engage in large amounts of fundraising, restructuring and, M&A. Many of these companies have in-house Investment Banking units. 

This is the reason why you’d find almost everyone quoting some of the other famous investment related movie.  Investment banking as a field branches out to various subfields, which include corporate finance, wealth management and mergers and acquisitions to name a few.  Of these, mergers and acquisitions have gone on to become one of the most sought-after fields, in terms of career choices.  A lot of M&A aspirants are more often than not, on the lookout for getting thoroughly trained so as to master this amazing field.  This is why a lot of candidates.  Imarticus Learning, which offers excellent industry endorsed, specialization programs on subjects like Corporate Finance, M&A, Valuation, Financial Modelling, Operations and so on. 

While getting professionally trained is extremely important, when it comes to pursuing a career in Investment Banking, it is equally important supplement your knowledge with the help of books.  Here’s a list of some of the best books and movies about Investment Banking, which would serve novices as well as professionals, very perfectly. 

Intelligent Investor

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, first published in 1949, is a widely acclaimed book on value investing.  The Intelligent Investor also marks a significant deviation to stock selection from Graham’s earlier works, such as Security Analysis.  Graham’s philosophy of “value investing” – which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies – has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949. 

Barbarians at the Gate

The Fall of RJR Nabisco is a book about the leveraged buyout (LBO) of RJR Nabisco, written by investigative journalists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar.  The battle for the control of RJR Nabisco in the Autumn of 1988, which became the largest and most dramatic corporate takeover in American history, sent shock-waves through the international business world and became a symbol of the greed, excess and egotism of the eighties.  Twenty years on, the world is once again recovering from a period of financial extravagance and irresponsibility. 

The Rules were simple: Never Pay in Cash Never Tell the Truth Never Play by the Rules

Rogue Trader (film)

Rogue Trader is a 1999 British biographical drama film written and directed by James Dearden in which we get the insights of the maker-checker concept of Investment Banking operations.  The film centres in the life of former derivatives broker and the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank.  It was based on Leeson’s 1996 book Rogue Trader: How I Brought Down Barings Bank and Shook the Financial World. 

The Big Short(film) is a 2015 American biographical film, based on the 2010 book The Big Short

Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis about the financial crisis of 2007–2008 which was triggered by the United States housing bubble.