Closing Thoughts

Although this final post is supposed to be about the end of my internship, I still have a couple of weeks remaining. This past week, I completed one of my final projects to support our team's private wealth management group's client pitch, including models, strategy outlooks, and market outlooks. It was a great experience to learn about various investment products. However, I do not envision myself entering a career within private wealth management. Four Wood’s operations go far beyond PWM though, and there are various opportunities to work across different areas of the investment universe.

As for my remaining projects, I have yet to complete an investment pitch for a private equity group looking at high yield real estate investments in Brazil. Working on due diligence for this project, I gained a lot of insight on global economic trends and market-shifting indicators. This will definitely be useful for me, as I definitely have plans to remain involved in finance for a time to come.

This leaves one major question – what will I choose to do next year? As of last week, it seems like there have been strong indications of interest that the Four Wood team will extend a return offer.

There was no formal performance review but feedback came in little bursts throughout the summer. In terms of the feedback I received, the team commented that I was a quick study and fit in really well at Four Wood Capital Partners. I was also able to juggle a lot of tasks at once, which I think was a big plus in a firm with about 25 people. I think my attitude towards working with a new company went over well. For areas to improve on, I’ll reference back to myself being a quick study—with friends, it can be easy to talk about topics which I am no master of, but with financial professionals, they are all much more experienced than me, and it is important to know everything about a topic if you don’t want it to become clear you have no idea what you are really talking about.

I have enjoyed my summer internship and hope all followers have enjoyed reading about it.

Learning Wall Street

Working with Four Wood Capital Partners has offered a real-world perspective as to what it is like working in financial services. I have been here for close to two months now and a clearer picture is coming together.

Based on what I’ve seen, being a lower level employee is in many ways an educational experience. My involvement in various projects - from corporate decks and marketing materials to building models and conducting due diligence - offers a wide perspective of different industries and financial tools.

One of the most interesting observations in our office is the alternative use of financial tools to create numerous income strategies. It demonstrates that there is a tremendous amount of knowledge available and wide array of applications for these tools, regardless of market conditions.

I have had two major projects so far. The first was developing wealth preservation models and researching athlete bankruptcy trends to support Four Wood's private wealth management business. The other project was collaborating with a private equity group to research high-yield real estate investments in Brazil. I feel like learning on the job is much faster and more interesting than when it just comes from a text book.

Within Four Wood, the people are extremely intelligent and driven. As a firm that just started with 2 people in November, the group has grown to over 25 employees and is continuing to make headway.

The strength of the company to grow and make headway when other companies are failing comes from the firm’s CEO and CIO. Respectively, they have been a senior managing director in sales at BlackRock and credit CIO at BNP Paribas, and they cover all bases as a team from creating valuable business relationships to creating strong investment products. Getting to work with them shows how to effectively run a business.

I am excited for the rest of the summer.

Not enough hours

Heading into the summer, I hadn’t really given a ton of forethought to what my social situation would entail. After all, I had never lived in a major city with other kids my age. How much effort could it take? To keep the theme of this post simple, it takes a lot.

At Four Wood Capital Partners, most people are in the office around 8:30 and we typically work through lunch until the end of the day, somewhere around 5 o’clock. Being that there are only 3 interns in our office, we get a lot of tasks delegated to us across a range of investment and analysis functions. I realize there is a lot more to my summer than solely going into the office every day.

In addition to work, one of my main objectives for the summer is to network with as many people as possible in the banking/finance industry. Having done a lot of homework on the industry and talking with professionals during the school year, it has become clear that relationships are highly valuable in achieving recruiting and career goals. I try to talk with people in the office as much as possible to see who they know, and who they can introduce me to, as well as drawing information from their own career experiences. Outside of the office, I aim to connect with Ross School alumni and family friends, who can help me learn more about the firms where I will be looking to recruit for next year. All relationships are valuable.

Another set of valuable relationships is the ones built with peers. The kids in New York go out on most nights of the week (the hours vary widely). I follow in suit, and am looking to make friends and connections that will stick around beyond the summer.

Long story short, there truly are not enough hours in the day. I’ll continue to explore both the professional side and social side of New York life, and I will happily sacrifice my sleep to get it done. Thankfully, New York has Starbucks and RedBull found on every corner.

Working Smarter

    The past few weeks at Four Wood Capital Partners have been pretty eventful. In terms of my own assignments, I've been at work on a myriad of projects. Some of these were doing research reports on our firm's competitors, creating a model for our high net worth client strategy, analyzing trends in real estate investment trusts (REITs), and putting together daily market summaries. Anyway, it doesn't seem like I've been given my big summer project yet (although working on our High Net Worth Client Strategy has been going on now for a few weeks, and it has drawn a lot of attention from various directors and managers in the firm). Nonetheless, I still have yet to get placed on a live deal.

    When it comes to getting work done, I've found that most of the people in the office with more experience are willing to give feedback and lend a hand to our group of interns. After all, none of us have significant real world experience. Their advice has helped a lot in knowing what to focus on and look for. One of the big takeaways so far has been the importance of developing work in a manner, such that anybody could understand the message by looking at a slide. It makes sense considering that investing activities are not exclusive to highly educated or sophisticated individuals. While we still need to make sure our research checks out and that all the work is accurate, keeping it understandable seems to be a very important point to remember for presentations and explanations.

    Working with supervisors has been relatively enjoyable so far. Most, as mentioned before, are generally helpful and willing to give guidance and explain what they want to see in our work. One thing all supervisors enjoy is hearing about interns and their social lives. Seriously, they love to hear about it. Moving on. At times, it can be tricky to work with multiple supervisors who have different objectives. However, I have found it easiest to collaborate with both supervisors and let them both take the credit for the great idea. I'm just hoping to keep my head down, learn a lot, and get new insights from more experienced professionals. It will be interesting to see if this strategy can work all summer long.

Getting Started

I'm now through with the first week of my internship, and it seems like there is going to be a lot on my plate all summer long. For those who haven't read my first post, I am working at Four Wood Capital Partners, an independent private equity and advisory group.

Four Wood just started up in November, so the office environment is extremely dynamic. To start, I found out the day before I began working that our office had already moved from Avenue of the Americas to Wall Street. As for the new office, it's still being put together. There were construction and maintenance crews in and out of the office hanging up art and TVs the first few days. Nonetheless, we still had clients and partners coming in and out of the office every day.

There is a really interesting culture in the office. There are about 25 employees who have all come from really impressive backgrounds in finance, many working on high (and some executive) levels at firms like BlackRock, Guggenheim Partners, and BNP Paribas. Everybody had left very successful and lucrative jobs to join FWCP at the ground level, so everybody there is very driven and collaborative.

This week, I worked on a few projects. First, I set up a spreadsheet for the firms partners and prospective partners with the other interns. I also worked on an investment prospectus for a gold bullion holding company, and set up a PowerPoint for high net worth client strategy. I learned a lot through the process. The rest of the summer will be more concentrated in the private equity area.

Finally, getting settled in New York. I moved in to Union Square at the start of the week. It's a very young area and it looks like there are a lot of people to meet and a lot of things to do. I'm looking forward to what's next.

A Crash Course in Banking

At the start of this year, I had no idea what investment banking meant. ECM, DCM, M&A, TMT? It sounded more like TV stations to me. I guess that's pretty standard for a student beginning his first year in the Ross BBA program. Well, I made sure to learn all about these areas (and more) throughout the year. Now I have a summer internship as an analyst in Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions, and as the summer is approaching, I realize I don't know how any of this works in the real world. I guess the steepness learning curve is what gets me most nervous about working for Four Wood Capital Partners.

 

Four Wood Capital Partners is an independent financial services firm focused on delivering unique investment solutions to the market. Through both organic growth, as well as partnerships with boutique managers, the firm seeks to deliver a diverse range of investment products across traditional asset management, real estate and private equity platforms. The goal is to provide investors with wealth preservation and current income strategies to meet their liability-driven needs. FWCP and its subsidiaries serve institutions, high net worth and individual investors.

 

Like I said, there is going to be a very steep learning curve. As an independent firm (with far fewer employees than the bulge banks), I am going to be working closely with clients and senior members of the firm. While this raises some concerns, I think I am more excited about the opportunities that I will get to learn the business inside out. It will be really valuable to learn the technical side of the business, and even more valuable to take part in interpersonal business at high levels. Ultimately, this should be a tremendous experience.

 

I am very excited to start my career in finance, and I hope to hit the ground running.