Over the past several weeks I have been working in the resources team at UBS in Perth. The office forms part of the wider UBS investment bank, and services the broad WA resources sector, providing advice primarily on M&A and capital raisings. After a week of training in Sydney and the opportunity to meet my fellow interns, I found myself again packing my bags to return home.

On my very first day with the team in Perth I was advised to prepare for a busy week and to put any plans for the weekend on hold. As it turned out, we were less than a week away from the announcement of a transaction that the office had been working on over the preceding month. Although I’d had some prior experience with boutique investment banks, I’d never had the opportunity to work on a live transaction.

As I was coming in at a late stage, most of the preparatory work had been completed and I had to quickly become familiar with the deal details. The pace was frenetic, with twice-daily conference calls updating our client, legal advisors and the counterparties on progress. Nothing quite matches the excitement of announcing a transaction. In spare moments you'll find yourself scouring for news about the work you’ve just completed. 

Those expecting an internship to amount to nothing more than nine weeks of coffee runs (as essential as they may be) will hopefully be pleasantly surprised. While programmes in other industries sometimes misrepresent the reality of the corresponding career – work miraculously disappearing at 6pm, indefinite lunch breaks and no weekend calls – a banking internship takes few liberties in sampling the profession.

The work assigned is real and never merely an errand designed to occupy time. Inevitably, real work is accompanied by time pressures and matching expectations of quality, but you will always have adequate support to meet the expectations. It’s also very rewarding, especially when you see the fruits of your labour – still recognisable after multiple edits – inserted in a client presentation.

The level of involvement extends beyond simply the completion of work streams. One of the more surprising aspects of my internship has been the willingness of senior staff to draw interns into high-level discussions. Whether they are about strategy, investment rationale, or transaction structuring, (legitimate) suggestions are given serious consideration, despite the relative inexperience of their source.

Interns exposed

Also unexpected has been the amount of client exposure. I’d been advised by friends who’d completed internships at other banks that analysts, let alone interns, were rarely invited to client meetings. So far I’ve had the opportunity to attend several meetings with clients, obtaining invaluable experience from observing senior bankers deal with people who are often company directors or senior management.   

Being based in the comparatively small Perth office, I was initially worried about not receiving the true experience of working at a bulge bracket investment bank. However, the past few weeks have allayed these concerns and I am confident that my time at the firm has not been markedly different from my peers in Sydney or Melbourne.

Despite the physical distance, we remain no less connected to our colleagues in other financial centres. Finance is a truly global industry and each office of UBS is part of an integrated global team. Not only have I had the opportunity to work closely with our resources department in Melbourne, it’s also not uncommon to get on a call with China or Moscow.

Over the last few weeks of my internship and beyond I look forward to seeing the outcome of our efforts at UBS. You never know – the work you complete may form part of a transaction that is announced well after your internship has concluded.

Ilya Redko is a UBS IBD intern in Perth. He is studying for a Bachelor of Law and Commerce at the University of Western Australia.