How the Trading Floor Really Works

Corporate Finance

Generally speaking, corporate finance is mainly a financial advisory business. This is where the bank looks at all the financial activities of its clients and identifies opportunities to provide financial services to them. As such, we generally call the individuals who sit within the corporate finance unit and manage the clients in this way the relationship bankers. There are four different areas that relationship bankers focus on: mergers and acquisitions (M&A), debt or equity capital raising, risk management and financial market transactions. The first two activities are activities that originate within the corporate finance department but ultimately end up on the trading floor. Outside of M&A and capital raising activity, ...