Marquette's Investment Banking Class Hosted Dave Hallet and Alex Schmidt of Lazard Middle Markets

First Set of Outside Speakers Recently Visited the Investment Banking Class

Mr. Jeffrey S. Germanotta teaches FINA 4081: Investment Banking at Marquette University and works closely with Dr. David Krause and the students in the banking track of the Applied Investment Management (AIM) program. He is working hard to bring the content to life and one of the approaches is to bring outside speakers into the classroom.

In talking about the course, he said, “In FINA 4081 we review the common types of transactions that investment bankers work on and the different methods used to value those transactions. Some of these include IPOs, seasoned equity offerings, exchange offers, mergers, hostile tender offers, leverage buyouts, and going private transactions. This course also exposes students to different methods used to value those transactions via applied projects, model building, cases, etc. Additionally, I try to supplement the material with timely outside speakers.”

  

Dave Hallet of Lazard Middle Markets Group

On September 19th, Marquette’s Investment Banking class was honored to have two guest speakers from Lazard's Middle Market Industrial Group: Managing Director, Dave Hallet and Senior Analyst, Alex Schmidt (a Marquette AIM alumnus).  

Mr. Germanotta said, “We learned of Lazard's rich, long and successful history dating back to 1848 and the firm's focus on global advisory services and asset management.  Dave and Alex also shared information regarding their career development, opportunities at Lazard for summer internships, and their full-time recruiting process.  Our speakers further provided insight into the numerous functions and opportunities within an investment bank, including M&A and restructuring advisory services, debt and equity capital markets, and sales, trading and research.”

Alex Schmidt, AIM alumnus

The students also had the privilege of walking through a real life case study of a sell-side advisory transaction, bringing added meaning to our classroom experience.  

Dave Hallet and Alex Schmidt explained their roll in guiding a privately held company though a sale process, which consisted of both strategic and financial buyers.  

Mr. Germanotta was pleased with the knowledge passed along by the Lazard guests. “This discussion incorporated defining seller objectives, identifying prospective buyers, preparing the confidential offering memorandum, screening buyers, and ultimately selecting a new majority owner, which in this case, was a private equity firm.  The Lazard team then led us in a conversation of the characteristics that make for a good private equity investment. We're grateful to Lazard for their continuing support of Marquette.”