Corporate Finance in Asia - Special advice from an Alumnus

After finishing the TICD coaching, I realized that many of the students that I spoke to were interested in corporate finance related opportunities in Asia. So, when I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Arnaud Aubouin, whom is one of the EDHEC alumni ambassadors in Hong Kong and is currently working at CA-CIB within their M&A team, I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions hoping to capture his insight on the corporate finance market for all of our benefit.

About Arnaud….

First up though, a little background on Arnaud.  He graduated in 2006 from EDHEC’s Grande Ecole Programme after spending a semester in Shanghai as an exchange student in Jiao Tong University.  Before Arnaud started at CA-CIB he had a couple of internship experiences in companies, such as L’Oréal in Paris and the Chalhoub Group in Dubai, UAE, within their finance divisions, which he was able to use as a spring board into his current company.

After graduation, Arnaud moved to Hong Kong where he has been since 2006. He started in the strategic equity transactions team of CA-CIB where he was involved in structuring, marketing and sales of equity derivative products.  In 2008, he had the opportunity to move over to the corporate finance activity and since then he has been involved in both M&A and ECM deals.  For example, recently he was involved in some mid-cap deals in such sectors as luxury goods, building materials or biotech.  When asked about his transition from markets to corporate finance, Arnaud said that it was quite an exciting challenge, but would rather encourage those who are interested in corporate finance to start there directly if at all possible as the most efficient way to build on your deal experience, speed of execution and network of relationships within the corporate finance community.

What will the M&A activity look like next year and which sectors will be active….

In terms of his overall outlook on the M&A activity, Arnaud said that obviously the market always has its ups and downs, but that as of now there is a fairly commonly shared positive outlook within the industry in the upcoming year.  When asked which sectors  could be the most active in the Asian region and globally in M&A, he responded that, in his view, and as far as crossborder transactions are concerned, some themes would continue to be strong throughout the year: consolidation in the global telecom industry, diversification of Asian investments in global infrastructures / resources that offer stable / defensive outlooks in the still uncertain macro environment, growth opportunities for consumer / luxury brands given the rise of the middle class in emerging markets.

The importance of Thomson Reuters’ League tables….

Indeed, when consulting Thomson Reuters Deals Intelligence league tables for the 2013 year, it was stated  that “China cross border (had)…, an 18.2% increase from the …comparable period last year.”  Fees earned in the region also increased by 2.4%, with the top earners being the bulge bracket American banks, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citi respectively.   Perhaps from these 2013 positive numbers we could draw similar conclusions that next year might also be buoyant in the region, especially for cross border deals.

You can see the full league tables, by consulting the Thomson Reuters site here.  Reading through the league tables can really help us to think more broadly of a target list of firms involved in corporate finance related activities when preparing a job search. You can log in for free, and you can see a very wide mix of Global and Asian players involved in corporate finance deals in Asia from just about every country including Japan (Nomura), China (CITIC Group), Australia (Macquarie Group), and Malaysia (CIMB Group). You can also see the global boutiques active in the region, such as Jefferies, and we also typically see the big four consulting firms involved in deals, such as KPMG and PwC.

Final advice…..

When asked for Arnaud’s final words of advice to the current students that are interested in corporate finance, he encouraged students interested in the Asian region to explore career opportunities in Hong Kong first (especially if you are a Mandarin speaker), as many of the Corporate Finance activities for the global financial institutions are hubbed out of Hong Kong, and he feels that these players are good ‘schools’ in which to start a career.

 If not possible to start in one of the large bulge bracket firms, look at the league tables and see where the firms that are listed are hubbing their corporate finance activities and apply to those locations.  He also emphasized that you may want to go beyond looking at the current rankings in league tables and not to discard too quickly the smaller players that may have an aggressive development strategy in Asia.  In addition, Arnaud encourages students in general to leverage the opportunity that they have of studying in a top global European business school like Edhec to get a first significant experience in France/Europe and sell the mutually beneficial perspective of a future move to Asia, as many world class French/European companies have a large presence in Asia.  He also insisted on the real plus it represents for international students in France to be able to learn French so that they get a real edge among other international candidates when applying with overseas French companies. In addition, he noted that EDHEC students are lucky to have the opportunity to do long-term internships as part of the academic programme, and that this should be treated as the career builder it is meant to be in order to best prepare for future careers.

Finally, when applying to your target firms, you must understand the best recruitment entry channel into the company. For example at CA-CIB in Hong Kong or in Paris, it is through the ‘traineeship’ programme.  You can see all offers on their site when you search by country: http://www.mycreditagricole.jobs/etudiants . You should also leverage on specialized social network resources (LinkedIn, efinancialcareers…) but in an efficient, smart and professional manner (“do not just throw connection requests in the wind, at least add a short personalized introduction”).

Rosemary Goater was speaking to Arnaud Aubouin in Hong Kong – Arnaud can be reached for further questions through LinkedIn and he invites you to join the Edhec Alumni Asia group if you are interested to connect with the Edhec community in the region