Tl;dr: Part of a collection of real examples of M&A investment banking slides. This blog covers Comparison of Financial Projections slides. See the PowerPoint presentations investment bankers are paid millions for. No matter your job, or your aspirations, you can learn from these slides.
This is part of a collection of 67 free M&A presentations from the top 20 banks (based on ranking, and also the quality of presentation for you to learn from).
Collection of M&A slide examples
The main page for all the M&A resources is here.
I have broken out 827 examples of slides across 32 sections. You can click through to the section you want to learn about next here:
Is this blog for you?
Why the heck should you care? Investment banks (historically) attracted the best and the brightest.
- Slide structure/design: Learn how complicated concepts are structured and designed in PowerPoint
- Analysis approach: See exactly how complex financial methods are presented
- Strategy and communication: M&A deals are not (normally, other than many Duff and Phelps decks) cookie cutter. There’s a host of topics that need to be dealt with
- Morbid interest: I used to do this for a living, but it’s still interesting to see how PPT are made… but then maybe it’s just me and so FML 😉
Who this will help:
- You want to work in banking: There’s a lot of applicants. Knowing the job helps you answer questions
- You work in banking: Even if you’re an MD, you need to know how the best are structuring their thoughts/analysis
- You write presentations: You can’t buy learnings like this. You can learn from the slides
- You have a curious mind: Good for you
About Comparison of Financial Projections
In another blog, we cover management projections. This is an example of a basic analysis you will build upon it.
So do the management projections make sense? Well let’s ask some nerds and they’re called brokers of equity research analysts. These guys are paid to study companies such as your client (they cover companies), These guys’ opinions matter because big investors (institutional investors) follow what these guys say, or at least the average of what they think.
To sense check the management projections, you pick all the line items and metrics that are important and you compare them to what analysts forecast. You hope that they are broadly in line, or you to need to understand why not!
Think about this, you are negotiating with an acquirer and you argue that you are worth more based on your DCF and forward year one and two. “OK, let me see how you calculate your numbers then” says the acquirer banker. They’re then going to argue about them. If your management forecasts are way higher than the street (the analysts) then they have a good reason to call BS, right?
Why these slides are made
I explained this above, it should be fairly obvious. This is a basic exercise you will likely do early on in the process to ensure you are happy with management projections.
If you are hired to do a fairness opinion on the valuation of the company, then these numbers are very important as you will have to present them to various special committees to walk them through the valuation methodology so they will sign off on them.
Comments on making these slides
You will notice that it says “consensus” pretty much everywhere. That means they have used an average of multiple analyst forecasts. You can get sneaky and pick the analyst forecasts that support what you want to say…
Finally, you see IBES in the first example. That means they used a service to download the numbers. In top-tier banks, you never use a service unless you are doing a quick and dirty. Bloomberg etc data is always wrong somewhere so you have to do all the work yourself (joy). I think in the USA Factset is more reliable so you are allowed to use it by your boss, but I did EU deals so never used Factset.
Examples of Comparison of Financial Projections
Want to learn more about investment banking presentations?
Want easy access to knowledge?