My experience as an Equity Research Intern at Oddo BHF…
In this article, Louis DETALLE (ESSEC Business School, Grande Ecole Program – Master in Management, 2020-2023) interviews a former Equity Research Intern at Oddo BHF.
First of all, let’s recall what Equity Research consists in?
The objective of equity research is to make buy or sell recommendations on stocks to advise investors on their asset allocation. In doing so, the Equity Research team will closely monitor certain stocks to see if the stock is outperforming or underperforming. In doing so, they will closely monitor the share price and sell their monitoring as a service to determine whether to buy or sell a share.
This equity research service is therefore sold to investors in the financial markets to provide them with a comprehensive financial analysis, as well as advice on whether to buy or sell particular securities. The analysis report presented by an equity analyst is used by investment banks and private equity firms to evaluate the company for an initial public offering (IPO), a leveraged buy-out (LBO), alliances and others. Therefore, all these investors constitute clients of Equity Research teams.
What banks did you apply for and what makes Oddo BHF different from others?
Most banks have Equity Research teams such as Société Générale, UBS, BNP Paribas, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Citi for instance. In short, equity research analysts are mainly employed by investment banks but also investment funds (KKR, Blackstone, Bpifrance, etc.) or asset management firms (BlackRock, Vanguard, Amundi, etc.).
For that matter, I had applied virtually everywhere but I only got interviews from UBS, BNP Paribas & Oddo BHF. I was refused at UBS but got the offer at BNP Paribas. However, since I had gotten along very well with the team at Oddo BHF, I chose to go there instead!
Is your equity research team specialised in a specific sector? Which one?
Whereas most equity research teams are specialised in a specific sector such as automotive, aerospace, healthcare, telecoms and biotech, mine isn’t. Some of the team members follow very closely the stock prices and market indicators of certain companies but it is more about personal interest!
That makes the experience super interesting, because I am able to see for myself how the stocks of companies in the luxury sector are impacted by the announcement of the quarter results and how they evolve, relatively to companies from other sectors.
What does an intern in Equity Research work on?
As explained above, an equity research analyst will follow the release of sector or company specific information to write a note for subsequent use by the clients as part of their investment strategy.
As an intern, I have assisted the work of the equity research analyst by doing information research, reading quarterly financial reports, and press releases which may provide information on the company’s performance to date compared to expectations. As the analyst will also look for information on upcoming mergers, I have to keep an eye on financial news as this will impact significantly the prices of stocks.
As for the sectoral notes, I can assist my team in the reading of documents from the major international institutions for all the data relating to global and entire sectors.
Once this research work is completed, equity research analysts proceed to forecast results through financial modelling. I can look at the financial modelling but I must say I am not allowed to work on it since the slightest mistake could cause significant errors.
Also, a last type of task that I was given was taking notes about clients’ questions by telephone during morning meetings. I would thereafter write a summary for the team.
Overall, would you recommend this experience to younger students? Why?
I would personally recommend this experience to anyone who is interested in finance, be it corporate finance or market finance. Because it is one of the rare fields where you enjoy the benefits of each: you analyze financial market products while comparing them to the financial results announced by companies.
For that matter, it is an excellent first internship in this field and anyone would be very lucky to do this internship because it would mean great exposure and lots of financial analysis.
Related posts on the SimTrade blog
▶ Louis DETALLE A quick review of the ECM (Equity Capital Market) analyst’s job…
▶ Haiyuan XU My professional experience as financial research assistant in a green finance institute
▶ Tanmay DAGA My experience as a sell-side equity research analyst
Resources
Finance walk Equity Research Interview Questions with answers
Youtube An analyst in Equity Research’s Youtube Interview
Youtube How to do the Equity Research of a company?
About the author
The article was written in December 2022 by Louis DETALLE (ESSEC Business School, Grande Ecole Program – Master in Management, 2020-2023).