hi
@Antoni Trochimowicz i was just wondering what your approach was to comm awareness - in terms of keeping up w the news but also technical knowledge? also how would you research a deal as i often find that difficult to navigate
Hi, of course, I think commercial awareness is definitely one of those things that is explored weirdly over the internet with many people suggesting other things.
Ways to keep up with news:
Create a brand new email, one that you do not use for anything else and using that, sign up to a bunch of newsletters. A lot of them cover the same news stories but often with slightly different reporting styles. I would recommend, as a start, to sign up to all of the ones I list, then picking and choosing what works best for you. The ones I signed up to:
- Finemize Daily
- Morning Brew
- The Daily Upside
- Economist
- International Intrigue (More focused on geopolitics)
- Non Billable (Definitely sign up to this one no matter what as it's different & legal related)
- Little Law (Didn't really use this but I'm pretty sure it has some good legal knowledge)
Technical Knowledge:
I don't usually like suggesting paid resources but "All you need to know about the city" is fantastic. Some of it is outdated but generally it's very useful as a beginner's guide to what you need to know.
Beyond that, I would learn:
- Inflation & interest rates and how they affect eachother and what they affect & what they're affected by
- Pros and cons of Share Sale vs Asset Sale
- Why companies acquire others
- Issues to do with Competition, IP, Tax, Employment et al. that could arise after a transaction
- Pros and cons of Equity vs Debt Financing
- Pros and cons of the different financial instruments/financing (bonds etc.)
Then for the big city firms I would try to learn a bit about PE, you don't need to watch law-specific videos but there's some great explanations of PE online. You can also learn a little about Private Credit and its differences to traditional lending if you want to particularly impress. This guy is pretty interesting about PE:
Then finally about a deal:
Check if the internet's usual news sources have the deal posted (FT etc.), they might not mention the law firms but they will go into the wider rationale of the deal (especially if it's a big deal)
Check the individual company's websites as sometimes they issue a press release about it. Then of course read the firm's websites about the deal. If you need further explanation you can always put in your sources and have a little conversation with AI about it.
Hopefully this was helpful, let me know if you have any further questions
