Pros
these blokes are not afraid to pay some serious quid Landed the job by running into a director at a pub. I was then at a hard time in my life but brought a strong mind and was given a chance. Paid off both ways but wasn't treated the best They taught me finance from the bottom up as I had merely been an anthropology major in uni. Learned how to create models and assess companies Took what I learned there and recently landed a gig someone like me would never have at a respectable bank in the Wharf.
Cons
I ended up doing much of the grunt work for them (it's a small operation). The firm hardly believed in computers to simplify things so they had me do many things outside of modeling through paper records and I was essentially one of 3 "slaves" as the execs liked to call us with not much humor to the tone. Perhaps commensurate with the pay but generally excessive, the execs demanded absolute focus at all times and punishment was harsh. A poor intern in his third year of a good uni with great prospects was sacked for playing solitaire! If there was nothing to do because all our analysis for the day was done, we'd be expected to read the Financial Times (in print, not on our terminals) and if you had already read that day's issue then no problem - there is a rich physical archive of past issues for you to "backtest your ideas"!
