Mark Yurko: Managing Director, Spurrier Capital Partners

The Old Grad Story: 

Mark served for five years as a Field-Artilleryman before leaving the Army to pursue his MBA at Columbia. While at Columbia, Mark leveraged on-campus recruiting to secure an internship at Citi, which he translated into a full-time offer. He stayed with the firm for five years, working in media, entertainment, and telecom. Mark then moved on to a role at Credit Suisse, which he held for a year and a half. Following the Great Recession, he took an eighteen-month sabbatical, before starting his current role as Managing Director at Spurrier Capital (founded by Clark Spurrier, USMA ’84), where he focuses on technology and communications mergers and acquisitions (M&A). 

Old Grad Knowledge:

Prior to joining Spurrier Capital, I didn’t know the first thing about originating business. I brought a lot of execution experience to the table, but I couldn’t rest on that alone. In the boutique environment, everyone needs to be entrepreneurial and contribute in ways they don’t in bulge bracket firms. 

When I came out of business school in 2002, there was a very clear hierarchy between firms, with the largest banks on top. Since then, boutiques have taken much more market share, while providing employees with greater freedom and autonomy. In fact, many of the competitors we hold the greatest respect for are other boutique firms that provide laser-focused expertise.

There’s really no substitute for learning investment banking at the big, bulge-bracket groups; I think that conventional wisdom holds. However, at the bigger firms, there are many days you can spend 50% of your energy worrying about internal politics. One of the nice things about the boutique level is that it’s all about output and production, rather than the internal games.

I think 95% of grads in banking would help anyone with that shared background break into the space – ask for help!

Lingo to Know: 

·         M&A: Mergers and Acquisitions – the practice of companies purchasing controlling stakes in other companies as part of their long-term growth strategy. 

·         TMT: Technology, Media, and Telecom – one of several key functional units present in many investment banks, with specialized services for clients in the space. Other common examples include Industrials, Consumer Products, Enterprise Applications, and more. 

·         League Tables: ranking tables that indicate the number of deals and volume of transactions that each investment-banker presided over in a given year. Beyond providing bragging rights, League Table rankings can help establish the credibility required to take on more and larger deals. 

·         Bulge Banks: larger, global, publicly-traded banks that offer a wide range of products and services across many industry groups. 

·         Boutique Banks: smaller banks that specialize in certain services and/or industry sectors. 

Breaking into Investment Banking

·         Find people who know the industry and can help; read, practice, and get the harshest feedback you can to prepare! 

·         Banks love the military background. If you can get your foot in the door, banks have confidence that you’ll perform. 

·         Cast a wide net and network like crazy! 

·         Attending a top-ten business school can be a powerful advantage during recruiting. 

·         Reach out to veteran investment bankers!