Analisa Balares '99 and Farzeen Naziri '99 spent last summer engrossed in the world of high finance in Manhattan--Balares as an investment banking analyst in the Global Energy Group at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Naziri in the Credit Division of JP Morgan--and loved it! Both women now want to pursue careers on Wall Street. With postgraduation job offers from their internship firms already in hand, Balares and Naziri will be spared pounding the financial district's well-worn pavement.
The two internships were made possible through Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), a prestigious program that places students of color and international students at top firms in five areas: investment banking, management consulting, asset management, corporate law, and accounting. Balares and Naziri were among 150 students, out of 2,000 applicants from around the country, selected to participate in the SEO's Investment Banking Division. The selection was based on grades, professors' recommendations, two essays, extracurriculars, community service, and a rigorous interview.
As part of SEO's program, Balares and Naziri attended presentations by top Wall Street professionals, including the CEOs and presidents of Goldman Sachs and Chase Manhattan Bank. In addition, seminars and receptions were organized so that SEO participants could mingle with managing directors, vice-presidents, associates, and analysts. "Each firm prides itself on its distinctive culture and work ethic/environment, which are characteristics that are difficult to perceive and fully appreciate unless you have the opportunity for significant contact with individuals from all levels in the firm," noted Naziri. "SEO did a great job of providing us with such contact, so that at the end of the summer I was able to make an educated choice as to which firm I would want to pursue employment opportunities with."
Among the projects Balares worked on at Morgan Stanley was the British Petroleum-Amoco merger, a deal worth some $48 billion and then the largest-ever industrial merger. "I performed market-share analysis, business-segment analysis, geographic-segment analysis, and various competitive analyses for the BP-Amoco merger," she explained. In the process, she learned about "the drivers behind mergers" and "a lot about the energy industry," often during all-nighters.
Naziri worked in the Structured Finance/Special Loans Division within the Credit Division of J P Morgan. She focused primarily on a project that involved tracking the performance of 30 sub-investment grade companies (those that receive a ranking by Moody's and S&P that indicates that high risk accompanies investment in these companies) in order to assess their financial viability, while examining internal and external drivers for growth within the firm and the industry as a whole. She was also involved in various research projects, such as determining the effect of political instability and unrest in the South Asian region on multinational companies with significant exposure in these regions.
With these internship experiences behind them, both Balares and Naziri certainly seem destined for success--you can bank on it.
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