A day in the life of an investment banker

If you love numbers and love the art and science of deal making, the world of investment banking might be an exciting one for you. As companies grow, they might look for opportunities to not just grow organically by building new solutions & products and entering new geographies, but also explore options for inorganic growth, which could include buying innovative companies that can have growth synergies for them or selling businesses & business units for more value creation. Such decisions require the expertise of an investment manager.

But, what exactly does an investment banker’s typical day at work look like?
We reached out to Loestro, a boutique investment banking and advisory firm, to deep dive and find the answer.


Their work involves dealing with clients for fundraising, mergers and acquisitions, and on consulting engagements across industries such as education, technology, consumer and healthcare. This translates into work across the deal-spectrum, from initiating conversations with founders to eventually closing the deal. In some cases, they also work on post-merger integrations.

Here are some insights from the experts at Loestro:
You might expect to wake up to morning texts on fundraising news, M&A news and even news of market crashes.

Once you hit the office, the team gathers for a morning meeting. Here, individual projects are updated and doubts are discussed.

The day goes by with multiple work streams operating in parallel, with some context switching. Here are some examples of this:

10.00 a.m.: The phone rings and it is a client interested in investing in an online tutoring platform. You would have to ensure that you cover all aspects of the prospective deal and get a project report ready before the deadline.

11.00 a.m.: You might have to be ready to tackle the financial model for an existing client deal.

12.00 PM: A potential deal in the healthcare sector is on the horizon, and you might have to quickly prepare a pitch deck outlining the opportunity and the possibilities.

As the day progresses, you would have to take business development calls, conduct due diligence work, work on PowerPoint presentations, finalise financial models, write articles, reach out to potential investors and even research on building new initiatives and verticals.

The team gets together at 6:00 pm for a round-up meeting to catch up on various aspects of work and to clear doubts.

If your work for the day is done, you might get to head home. Sometimes, you would have to put in extra hours, or meet a client over a dinner meeting.

For people looking at early stage investment banking roles, the team has some guidance on the skills needed and work needed to be done:

Stage of Transaction	Role of member	Skills required
Founder introduction	Meet the founder and learn about the business. Understand founders' vision, and how LoEstro can make a positive impact in their entrepreneurial pursuits. At this stage, it is also important to undertand that we may not be the best partner for a founder, depending on where they are in their journey	Ability to understand businesses and to ask key questions Summarize information for all members of firm to learn and to discuss Fluent communication and confidence
Collateral preparation	Preparing investment collaterals such as pitch decks and financial models. At this stage, while the output is the most important outcome, it is imperative that the member is efficiently able to work with the founder's team to gather, process and synthesize information that is coming from the client	Ability to work independently and handle ambiguity Numerical and financial capabilities Efficiency with Microsoft Powerpoint and Excel Documenting the story of the company with words and numbers
Investor Meetings	Schedule meetings with investors, attend meetings and ensure a streamlined converations. Summarize conversations and share information for investor's analhysis, wherever required.	Ability to summarize key information Communicating effectively Control of data and information flow
Due Diligence	Work with the client team and investor team on legal, financial, tax, property and commercial due diligence. Read, undertand, and share key documents with law firms, accountants, and consultants to enable diligence report preparations. Answer key questions raised by any of the counsels	Ability to read and understand new and complex business terms and documents Efficient information management
Closure	Attend meetings where final terms of the transactions are negotiated and condition precedents/subsequent are brought up. Work with the Managing Director on key items as discussed and ensure smooth transition to closure	Problem Solving Information management Effective communciation

Source: LoEstro


Apart from strong financial knowledge and analysis skills, candidates also need to be strong critical thinkers, effective communicators and problem solvers.

If that sounds like the kind of work day that excites you, maybe the investment banking doors might be ones you might need to knock on.