“Wait, you can buy a company? Not just buy something at a company?” The first time I learned companies were for sale, I was flummoxed. Why would you want to buy a company? How much would it cost? And who had that kind of money, anyway? Several years later, after working at various top elite boutique investment banks and private equity firms, though, I began to piece together the basics, which I now share with my students at Wall Street Mastermind to answer to the questions I originally...

Technical proficiency has become a non-negotiable requirement for careers in investment banking, private equity, and corporate finance. While universities provide a theoretical foundation, most employers expect junior hires to arrive with a working knowledge of financial modeling, valuation, and transaction mechanics. This disconnect has led many candidates to seek external training providers to prepare for interviews and early-career roles. This review examines The Investment Banker by...

Why It's Challenging To Break Into VC A career in venture capital is often regarded as one of the most difficult paths to break into in finance. The industry appears closed, opaque, and dominated by a narrow group of former founders, investment bankers, and elite university graduates. While there is some truth to this perception, it obscures a more practical reality. Venture capital is less about pedigree and far more about proximity to high-quality deal flow and the ability to evaluate it...

Lorettz shares his career journey across banking and consulting, starting with an international education in economics and strategy (University of Sussex, Stanford exchange, and a Master’s in Strategy & International Management from the University of St. Gallen). He began his career at Credit Suisse in Zurich in wealth management before moving into the bank’s wind-down (bad bank) division, where he spent four years working on complex, legally intensive projects aimed at reducing...

Citadel, the hedge fund led by Ken Griffin and known for its success in commodity markets, is entering the industrial metals sector after years of avoidance. This shift comes as metals like copper and tin reach record highs, sparking broader interest in the market. The firm has hired Ylan Adler as a portfolio manager focused on cross-commodities, with metals as a central component. The article highlights this move amid a surge in metals trading by other funds and houses...

ASML Holding NV, a Dutch semiconductor equipment maker, reported record fourth-quarter bookings of €13.2 billion ($15.8 billion), surpassing analyst estimates of €6.85 billion. The surge is driven by demand for advanced equipment to support AI infrastructure. During an analyst call, executives addressed concerns about maintaining this momentum. The company is based in Veldhoven, Netherlands, and the results were announced on January 28, 2026...

It's taking many of America’s most credentialed business-school graduates months to land and accept job offers.⁠ https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/even-mbas-from-top-business-schools-are-struggling-to-get-hired-11f4a167 ⁠ With companies scrutinizing every white-collar hire, the job market for M.B.A.s has sputtered for more than a year. That is weakening a reliable catapult into executive-track jobs that can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars.⁠ ⁠ Though there were hiring rebounds at...

Alex and David discuss breaking in from PwC in Dublin to Lazard in London, the grim realities of life on the desk, and his thoughts on AI's impact on the industry. Off The Beaten Path David's journey began at Trinity College Dublin, where he studied economics and geography without a clear career destination in mind. "I speak to a lot of grads at the moment who are a lot more clued in than I was," he admits, "but I knew it was in finance somewhere." This led him to PWC's deals department...

The largest merger and acquisition (M&A) deal of all time remains the hostile takeover of Mannesmann AG by Vodafone AirTouch PLC in 1999–2000, a landmark transaction that reshaped the global telecommunications landscape and set a record that has stood for over two decades. The Record-Breaking Deal In late 1999, British telecom giant Vodafone AirTouch (formed after Vodafone's earlier acquisition of AirTouch Communications) launched an audacious bid for Mannesmann AG, a German industrial...

Discussions over a tie-up to create the world’s largest mining group come as race to secure copper reshapes the sector https://www.ft.com/content/33b05a8b-9de0-4e70-8530-7237df1bf0d9

More than 200,000 European banking jobs are under threat over the next five years as lenders increasingly embrace artificial intelligence. https://www.ft.com/content/71e12f85-1edb-4156-8cb5-3fe8aef36d93

Highest-ever number of megadeals lifts total value of M&A by 50% in 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/46b87305-4bd7-4e64-81f9-ad6b9a9bc429

Artificial intelligence has arrived across the financial services industry with the force of a market disruption, and the anxiety is universal. Investment banking analysts watch as AI tools fix typos, alignment on presentations and draft pitch books within minutes. Sales and trading desks see algorithms execute trades with superhuman speed. Actuaries find AI models processing vast datasets they once spent weeks analyzing. Consultants realize that AI can generate frameworks and slide decks...

In this episode Alex discusses the investment banking industry with a Bocconi alumni, who spent 15 years in the trenches as a Director at Morgan Stanley's Capital Markets division. They cover topics like breaking in, AI, exit opportunities and the future of the industry.

If you’re a student or junior banker looking at investment banking, it’s natural to focus almost entirely on technical skills. You’re told to master accounting, valuation, financial modelling, and Excel shortcuts. All of that matters, especially early on. But there’s a skill that quietly becomes just as important, and often much earlier than people expect: communication. Not polished public speaking or “soft skills” in the abstract, but the ability to communicate clearly, confidently, and...

For most students and junior bankers, “investment banking” is taught as a linear, rational process. You analyse a company, build a model, prepare a polished deck, pitch to the client, and eventually execute a transaction. Actually, that description captures only half of the job, and in many cases not the half that determines whether a deal actually gets done. Capital markets sit at the intersection of investment banking, sales & trading, and investors (still within the bank’s private side)...

Experts discuss what investors need to know for 2026 at the annual FT Money roundtable. https://www.ft.com/content/21f59bee-8747-4a44-b992-336ef4c5157f

Funds such as Balyasny, Jain Global and Qube are expanding operations to allow them to trade underlying markets https://www.ft.com/content/598c3bfc-008c-438f-837c-f7ec73a993f6

Paramount has launched a $108bn hostile bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery. https://www.ft.com/content/7981af0e-ad93-4c11-8c1c-09b0167bf4d6

The actuarial profession remains one of the most intellectually demanding and financially rewarding career paths in London and across Europe. While many associate actuaries purely with insurance, the reality is far more diverse—these professionals are the mathematical architects behind pension schemes, investment strategies, risk management frameworks, and regulatory compliance across the financial services sector. London, as Europe's financial capital, hosts the greatest concentration of...