The Pitchbook in investment banking is a marketing document presented by firms to existing and potential clients to sell their advisory services.
In investment banking, a pitchbook serves as a marketing presentation to convince an existing client or potential client to hire their firm for advising on the matter at hand.
For example, the pitch book could be used in a “bake-off” among various competing firms for the same client to provide M&A advisory services to a client interested in acquiring a competitor, or a private company seeking to raise capital in the public markets via an initial public offering (IPO).
The standard sections of a pitch book in investment banking consist of a situational overview and the background of the firm, specifically the notable members of the group, and any relevant deal experience that pertains to the client, i.e. the purpose of these slides is to make the case that the firm is the most qualified to take on the client.
Beyond the background of the firm, the transaction merits are also discussed, with the high-level analysis supporting their key findings, which sets the foundation for how the client would be advised if chosen (i.e. the estimated valuation of the client, list of potential buyers or sellers, commentary on the firm’s recommended strategy, risks and mitigating factors, etc.).
Below are several examples of real investment banking pitch books, from various investment banks.
If you’re wondering, pitch books like these are generally not available to the public.
These investment banking pitch books are rare examples of pitch books filed with the SEC and thus made it into the public domain.
We separated the following pitchbook out, since the context of this document is actually controversial.
Oracle made it available to the world, claiming they received the deck when Qatalyst, acting as Autonomy’s advisor, pitched Autonomy to Oracle.
Qatalyst and Autonomy, however, dispute this claim, with Qatalyst saying they were not as Autonomy’s advisor, but rather pitching ideas to Oracle to win a buy-side mandate.
With that said, here’s the deck.
The nature of the feud is interesting, as it sheds light on how investment banking pitches are presented to clients. Therefore, I recommend everyone read the DealBreaker article below.
“People who have real jobs are sometimes surprised to learn how much of investment banking consists of hopeless pitching. Your team puts together a forty-page slide deck with sixty pages of appendices, proofreads it repeatedly, updates numbers every day for two weeks, and prints a dozen glossy spiral-bound copies. Then you lug them halfway across the continent, slog through the first five pages with an increasingly bored potential client, are politely rebuffed, and then cleverly ask “hey do you want any extra copies of the presentation for your colleagues?” so you don’t have to carry them back on the plane. Glamorous work.”
Source: Dealbreaker
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