Dear Agentis Capital Recruitment Team, I am an incoming penultimate year student and statistics scholar at University College London studying Economics and Statistics. I am highly interested in an opportunity to work at Agentis Capital in summer 2023. My experience in M&A and understanding of financial markets started a long time ago, while I was in sixth form. With an introduction into insurance via my first summer internship, I was tasked with understanding downwards projection to price financial products and develop deep sector knowledge. However, the industry was experiencing significant change from the proposed merger between Willis Towers Watson and Aon. This demonstrated to me the power of M&A to reshape industries and be fundamental to firms’ growths particularly in a competitive environment. Since then, I have been able to explore firms such as RBC and HSBC and network closely with analysts, building up a deeper understanding of due diligence techniques and valuation methods including precedent transactions, comparable companies and DCFs. However, I sought to take different perspectives too in the industry to better understand how to be an effective individual working in the sell-side. By working with M&A in a legal setting at Herbert Smith Freehills, I was able to identify the frictions that can stagnate a transaction and how to best mitigate them in negotiation and view things from both sides of the deal. I firmly believe that my experience within the financial industry has given me the chance to look at deals more closely and understand what drives value for the buyside but also the interest to become more involved in the sell-side and act as that advisor role to clients without the conflict of interest seen in bigger banks. This is where I believe Agentis Capital differentiates itself: it has been an advisor on infrastructure deals which can hugely range on a spectrum for yield, depending on whether the client has chosen a core investment strategy or not. It’s clear that this would require a strong technical understanding and robust financial modelling skills which I believe I’ve made a great start with but would like to gain practical experience with; all whilst acting as a close advisor to the client and not incurring any bias to underwrite securities. However, another big benefit of working at Agentis is the flexibility to also work in the buy-side by building their portfolio of firms. My experience with Bain Capital Credit has enabled me to understand how to assess when purchasing debt or equity of smaller private firms especially when projections may be largely speculative and feel I could perfectly embed this knowledge into Agentis’ workflow. Agentis Capital offers a unique opportunity for me to develop by allowing me to work with complex deals in the infrastructure space but also harness how due diligence works on the buy-side and this combination I believe will enable me to think about businesses and investing in a more profound way than at other firms. Thank you. Please contact me for further details or any questions you may have about my application. Yours Sincerely, Musa Asad.
