Background & Vision:
The full story behind the Simulator and its visionary is one “best saved for insomniacs” according to its founder, Neil Palmquist. The Investment Banking Simulator concept came about through what Mr. Palmquist claims was nothing more than an “astute grasp of the obvious”.
A strategic advisor to the core, Mr. Palmquist has been providing management consulting, brokerage, and intermediary services for clients ranging in size from respectable multinational Fortune 100 corporations all the way down to the manufacturing sole proprietorships since the mid 1990s. In 2002 Mr. Palmquist broke away from his then cushy job to start his own consultancy, The Legacy Group, to provide high caliber, professional Exit Planning Consultation and Discreet Business Transfer assistance for middle-market businesses, business professionals (attorneys, accountants, etc.) and those special individuals and groups with the desire to take hold of life’s reigns.
As foundation to his success, Mr. Palmquist holds both the CM&AA (Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor) and CEPA (Certified Exit Planning Advisor) designations, sits respectfully on the boards of both the Alliance of M&A Advisors, www.amaaonline.org, and the Exit Planning Institute, www.exit-planning-institute.org, and continues to actively expand his knowledge and partner with others interested in collaborating on new ventures and/or strategic realignment opportunities within the Investment Banking and Private Equity Communities. In fact, it was Mr. Palmquist’s continuing pursuit of knowledge that led to the value concept behind the Simulator.
In has long been accepted in the Investment Banking Industry that new entrants seek their first banking job with no prior experience, skills or even conceptual base as to how to perform the industry's entry-level job position, as analyst. It matters little whether the industry entrant is a career changer, an undergraduate, or even an Ivy League MBA graduate..., as a rule, all will lack the fundamental knowledge and skills proficiency necessary to fulfill the responsibilities placed upon them as an entry-level analyst in the Corporate Finance Division of our world’s leading Banking Institutions.
To accommodate this gap in needed knowledge and skills, the industry assumes much risk with each new analyst they hire. In the industry’s sink or swim environment, the bank hires; not knowing whether A) the analyst will eventually make the grade so that they may be offered an associate’s position… and/or B) whether or not the analyst will choose to jump ship to a competitor after funding the employee’s development. Selecting interns from top business schools helps qualify and narrow the competition, but in the end every hired analyst a bank undertakes is a gamble on the competency of the “analyst’s” ability to learn and perform, as well as a judgment on their moral character and whether they’ll show the loyalty to remain after training.
At least in regards to learning and performance, the Investment Banking Simulator can remove the guess work. The Investment Banking Simulator is the only real-world, employment and job assignment simulator for the Investment Banking Industry… both in practice and accountability. Users have the opportunity to learn, build experience, and master the skills commensurate of the industry’s entry level analyst position, as an industry analyst, before ever setting foot in an investment bank.
Financial Modeling, Leveraged Buy Out and DCF Modeling, Accretion/Dilution, Pitching, Full Merger Modeling… if it’s a skill needed in an Investment Bank’s Corporate Finance Department, a user can tackle it. Further, as one’s experience grows, so does one’s e-portfolio showcasing their completed assignments and reviewer assessments; the perfect objective marketing tool to set one apart from any would-be job competition.
Our People, Quality and Service:
To bring our business to life, we knew that no one viewpoint on how to complete any given modeling assignment would be sufficient. One man’s tricks of the trade by definition are unknown to others... otherwise they wouldn’t be tricks… In short, while the sharing of one man’s tricks of the trade may be deemed career foundational, pulling a team of experts’ tricks of the trade together can be career making…
Thus, diverse experts from varying financial sectors were pooled together to help create a series of walkthroughs that build the user’s skill foundation in a controlled progressive manner. Our initial team was vast… and included former hedge fund and private equity analysts, investment banking and research analysts, stock equity analysts and even e-learning specialists all working together with the unifying ambition of creating an escalating series of assignment walkthroughs and practice assignments that will expedite learning, heighten retention, and reinforce the users job and skill proficiency as historically has only been possible once an actual job was attained.
Complexity is added not through any manipulation of the real-world nature of the assignment; every assignment from the very first one is a real-world possible assignment of an actual public company, but rather, complexity is added through the selection of the assignments’ subject company(ies) and/or industry(ies). For example, initial assignments might involve building a financial model and discounted cash flow analysis of a very simple, but actual, public company, while later assignments might include the merging of two companies in which one has undergone a divestiture or stock split, while the other has a financial reporting period or currency that differs from the former. All real in nature… All brought to the user in a natural, skill compounding, educational format to heighten user retention and create superb analysts.
With the Simulator… the only limit to how much experience you can gain, is the time you choose to invest.