A Day in the Life of a Summer Analyst at Houlihan Lokey

Below is an account of an 18-hour period in the life of an investment banking summer analyst; she works as a corporate finance generalist for Houlihan Lokey in New York.

7:30 AM: Wake up to the repetitive beeping of my alarm; immediately check my phone. There are a few emails I was cc’d on, nothing urgent, so I brush my teeth and take a shower. After a quick breakfast, I head out the door of my small studio to catch the downtown 6 train.

8:15 AM: I feel like a sardine; the train is packed with bankers and tourists. You can easily distinguish between the two: half of the passengers are stressed and tense, while the other half are carrying cameras and maps. I get out at 51st Street.

9:00 AM: Arrive at my desk; have my first cup of coffee. Begin research (using Bloomberg and Capital IQ) for a project an MD and I are working on It’s rare for a summer analyst to get this type of interaction with senior bankers; it’s one of the things I appreciate most about working here.

11:00 AM: Receive an email from the MD who wants to discuss my research. We meet in his office a few minutes later. The meeting goes well. He’s happy with the report I put together.

12:30 PM: A few analysts and I grab a quick lunch at a bistro across the street. I eat my salad at my desk while creating revenue breakdown charts by geography and product segment for a management presentation happening later this month in Canada.

3:30 PM: Another MD invites me to join a client meeting, which is starting in less than an hour. I gladly accept the invitation, then start flipping through the presentation books two at a time to ensure accuracy (I‘m on cloud nine to have been offered this opportunity during the first week of my internship).

4:00 PM: Leave the office with my deal team to the client meeting, which is just a few blocks away. There are five people present at the meeting. I note that the client questions every financial value and multiple in the book, trying to get a better sense of how the valuation was performed. The meeting goes well. It was a great learning experience.

6:00 PM: Back in the office just in time to order dinner from Seamless. A group of us order salmon—a favorite in the office. After I eat, I spend a few hours turning around the edits on the management presentation I was working on earlier (the client’s CEO sent the edits).

9:00 PM: Start compiling a financial buyers list for another pitch I’m helping with. Capital IQ and Thomson are good sources of information. I look for similar transactions and for buyers interested in investing in the client’s industry. 

11:00 PM: Finish the buyers list. Spend some time double-checking my work, then hand it off to the analyst on my team. The analyst seems satisfied with what I've done.

12:00 PM: Familiarize myself with an accretion/dilution Excel model for another project I’m working on.

12:30 PM: Ask the rest of the group if I can help with anything else. An associate says he needs a transaction list in the industrials group.

1:30 PM: Finish compiling a list of over 15 transactions using Capital IQ’s screening tools, then email it to the associate and turn off my computer. Leave the office and get in a cab. I’m tired, but happy with how my day went and with the experiences that I had.