Discussion Materials: Tales of a Rookie Wall Street Investment Banker by Bill Keenan

1

Stripes and Solids
I’d goen used to wearing pants with a drawstring, so the suit and tie
already put me in a bad mood.
“Which deal are you guys using for BANK?” asked Dark Gray Suit as he
frantically shuffled through the papers in front of him, a collection of
Training the Street and Breaking into Wall Street study guides.
“Burger King’s acquisition of Tim Hortons,” said Navy Suit, siing at the
head of the table.
“What was the purchase price?” said Dark Gray Suit.
“Eleven billion—seven billion of cash, four billion in stock,” said Navy
Suit as he leaned back in his chair.
“Eleven point four billion USD, or about twelve-and-a-half CAD,” chimed
in Dark Gray Suit #2, his eyes glued to his laptop computer screen.
“And it was all about inversion, right? Tim Hortons is headquartered in
Toronto, and since Canada has a lower corporate tax rate—”
“Twenty-six and a half percent,” said Dark Blue Suit.
“Right, so it’s lower than in the US, which makes re-domiciling the
combined entity in Canada aractive.” As he said it, his eyes scanned the
table for reassurance. “Wait, was BANK lead le? Or were they cobookrunners

with BANK?” Seconds later, he darted across Watson library
to a Bloomberg Terminal.
“He’s fucked—the deal was more about realizing cost synergies than the
tax thing. Plus, BANK wants to hear about stuff that isn’t front-page news—
need to show them you’ve done some research.” Navy Suit fixed his
cufflinks and brushed a piece of nonexistent lint off his sleeve.
“Good call. What transaction you using?” asked Navy Suit #2.
“Got a debt offering that I found—didn’t get a lot of press but heard from a
buddy that it got BANK a lot of respect on the Street.”
“What company was it?”
“Look up your own shit.”
“Keenan, what deal are you using if they ask?”
“Probably that Burger King one,” I said.
“You’re interviewing with BANK next, right?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Dude, prey sure they didn’t advise on that deal. You can’t use that as
your example if they weren’t involved in the transaction.”
“I heard that place is a real sweatshop,” added someone.
“So do you have a backup deal you can use?” Dark Blue Suit asked me.
“Keenan?”
But I was busy reading the most recent headline on NHL.com about a
former junior hockey teammate who at age twenty-eight was geing called
up to the Vancouver Canucks to make his NHL debut. Aer toiling in the
minor leagues for nearly seven seasons, he was about to realize his
childhood dream—and mine. Equal parts envy and pride rushed through
me as I stared at his picture on my computer screen.
“They’re going to love you with the hockey background,” said Navy Suit
#2 as he peered at my screen. “Plus, you already got sick banker hair.”
I didn’t have banker hair. It was hockey hair. But he was right: it was sick.
Four months ago, a day aer my first class at Columbia Business School,
recruiting for investment banking started. There were nights spent in
“banker circles”—six-plus students standing in a circle, holding half-empty,
watered-down vodka sodas with crooked nametags pinned to suit jackets,
listening expectantly to some banker. One student would ask how BANK
thought about the effects of low interest-rates or increased regulation on
M&A activity, at which point the Oracle of Nowhere would regurgitate—
using mainly acronyms—a highlight reel of the deals he’d worked on, most
of which we would have seen “on the front page of the Journal.”
“We were sole advisors on TTZ’s LBO of a major CPG company. Bought
them out at seven times LTM EBITDA.” Which of course begs the question:
WTF?
We would nod in unison and pretend to know what the hell the guy was
talking about, and then it was onto the next question. Rinse and repeat.
Periodically, I’d take breaks to hit on the HR women; they’d pretend to

Discussion Materials: Tales of a Rookie Wall Street Investment Banker by Bill Keenan