37 Hours and an ambulance later, we're done

That's right boys and girls, 37 straight hours in the office. I (we) worked from 9am on Thursday until 10PM on Friday, non-stop. Oh and one of our teammates left in an ambulance, here's how things went down...

Let me be completely honest, 9am is way too early for me to be arriving at my desk, I was clearly only there for a meeting which got canceled so I was already pissed off. The real issue though was the news my boss, the all powerful Managing Director, was about to deliver. If you're an analyst or associate and you see one of those little fuckers pumping their fist at 9am on a Thursday just know right then and their that you are completely fucked, immediately cancel all plans. Shortly after the phone call the Spaniard, whom to be honest is a really cool guy, delivered the news; we need to deliver a response to a client's proposal by 4PM Friday. To be fair it is a really interesting deal and we have a fair chance of being appointed to advise on it so I'm not really complaining about any of this.

Anyway, Thursday went along fine until 11pm when we went a man down. The guy had been sick with a chest infection for two weeks and yet continued to work 14 hour days. So whilst we are the only ones on the floor, working diligently listening to our I-Pods, he is sitting there unable to breathe, feeling tingles, getting more pale than Casper, and questing if it was alright to interrupt one of us to call an ambulance for him. Luckily he did, and they came and took him away. Now I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no I am not the first person who asked "well what the fuck do we do now, we're a man down". Mr. French beat all of us to the punch, I don't think the patient was in the elevator before he let it out. It had to be said, don't blame him.

So we continued to work, by 6am it was down to two of us, fighting hallucinations, we were determined to turn this thing out by the 4PM deadline and go home. Armed with Red Bull, Coke, and Skittles we completely defied natural law and except for a few nod offs during a conference call made good progress, by the time the MD arrived in the morning the document was in good shape.

Alright I lied, WE thought the document was in good shape. The two sugar cracked guys who look like shit and didn't even have time to go to the level 5 gym and shower, yes WE thought it was fine. The powers that be did not, and truth be told they were very correct. All of the content was fine, but I'm not even shitting you, we had the Introduction section in the appendix, issues. After working non-stop on Friday we finally finished six hour after the deadline. Forty versions of the presentation and 100 "you look like shit" comments later, we were done. I don't think I have ever slept so good in my life.

It's not like these things go unnoticed though and people seemed happy. My Director even commented that this was my first technical all nighter, which he defines as two complete days. Apparently, my rides home at 7am for a shower and a new suit do not count because I left the office.

Madrid (Airport) is Cool

Weird title, eh? Well let me explain, this post is all about travel in the banking world. I bet it sounds fun to jet set to Madrid for a day, to visit Paris and to go to Dubai, all on the company tab. In my opinion it's fun, I haven't been here long enough. See in banking there is no time for fun when you travel, this isn't a real estate conference in Vegas where you can sneak off to the slots. In my experience thus far, you simply go directly to the airport from the office, fly two hours to Madrid, go straight to and then from the office and then fly home the same day, returning to the office at night of course. When you go to Dubai, things get really bad. You depart London at 9:30 at night, arrive in Dubai at 9:00AM go to meetings all day and then leave Dubai at 2AM, arriving back in London at 6:00AM, plenty of time to shower and....make it back to the office.

See before the credit crunch these sorts of things were acceptable, sitting in business class (first class for the top guys) was not so bad. Now though, the expense hammer is reigning down upon us. All analysts now need to fly economy, no matter the distance being flown. Associates can only fly business on flights over six hours in length, and under two hours even the MD's have to fly economy. It's getting worse by the day, but that's a whole other story entirely.

The Cryogenically Frozen Deal

Have you ever seen Austin Powers? Are you one of the believers that Walt Disney is still alive, cryogenically frozen beneath Splash Mountain? Even you non-believers, I have good news. You CAN keep something alive after its dead, just ask any investment banking executive. Let me explain to you how it works and you’ll understand what I mean. When an investment bank signs a deal, they get a “mandate” from the client. The mandate is a signed document between the client and the investment bank that says the bank has been hired to complete the transaction. Every executive wants and needs mandates; it’s how they collect fees.

The problem lies in the fee structure. You see, almost every mandate is back-ended, meaning that the majority, if not all, of the fee comes as a “success fee” when the transaction closes. Before completion the bank only gets expenses reimbursed which means the director has no profit to show when it comes to bonus time, this is why mandated deals never die.

Luckily for me I just started, but I am now involved in the execution (attempted completion) of two dead deals. What happens is this, as each quarter passes, new financials are released by the client that must be incorporated into the hundred plus page memo. It takes a solid week of continuous work to do this as each time the lawyers need to sign off and so on. After this is done the client sits around waiting and waiting, finally they decide that they are so close to reporting “great numbers” that they decide to hold off the deal until the next set of financials come out in a month. This circle is endless and goes on and on because the client really isn’t sure of what they want to do.

So as an investment bank when do you say enough is enough? When do you decide that if you continue throwing resources at it the deal still won’t go through? Never. An executive who doesn’t have profit prefers to say “well we’re mandated on [dead deal]” than say nothing at all. They don’t care what else is going on, in their mind continuously wasting time is fine; they aren’t the people pulling the all-nighters. Take a guess at how I feels to be working all night updating a document for a bullshit deadline for a deal you know will never close…you’re right.