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Finance & Business Dictionary
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 2+2 | 2 years in IB followed by 2 years in PE, usually need to be with top tier firms, eg. 2 years at Morgan Stanley, followed by 2 years at Silver Lake |
| A&D | Aerospace & Defense |
| AM | Asset Management: Refers to the industry which manages assets, whether institutional or personal |
| B2B | Business to Business |
| B2C | Business to Consumer |
| BB | Bulge Bracket: Generally the largest banks competing for the largest deals |
| BDC | Business Development Company, an organization that invests in small- and medium-sized companies as well as distressed companies. A BDC helps these firms grow in the initial stages of their development. With distressed businesses, the BDC helps the companies regain sound financial footing. |
| C2C | Consumer to Consumer |
| CFA | Chartered Financial Analyst |
| CIO | Chief Investment Officer |
| CPG | Consumer Packaged Goods |
| CRA | Credit Rating Agency eg. S&P, Moody's, Fitch |
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management |
| DCF | Discounted Cash Flow: A method used to value a company or project by determining the present value of future cash flows |
| DCM | Debt Capital Markets: A division within an investment bank which focuses on raising debt capital |
| EBITDA | Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization: A measure of a company's operating performance |
| ECM | Equity Capital Markets: A division within an investment bank which focuses on raising equity capital |
| ER | Equity Research |
| FIG | Financial Institutions Group: A group within an IB or IBD, which focuses solely on companies in the general finance services sector |
| FT | Full-time Analyst: An analyst working full-time at a financial services firm |
| GARP | Growth at a Reasonable Price |
| GS | Goldman Sachs |
| HF | Hedge Fund: Investment funds that are usually only open to a small number of large investors |
| IB | Investment Banking |
| IBD | Investment Banking Division: The division of a bank that focuses on investment banking |
| IPO | Initial Public Offering: A corporation's first sale of common shares to investors on a public stock exchange |
| IR | Investor Relations |
| JPM | JP Morgan |
| KKR | Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, a famed private equity firm |
| KPI | Key performance indicator |
| L/S | Long/short, an investment strategy that involves buying equities that are expected to increase in value and selling short equities that are expected to decrease in value. |
| LBO | Leveraged Buyout: A method PE funds generally use to buy companies, leveraging assets for debt |
| LO | Long only is an investment strategy that focuses on buying securities to earn a profit when they increase in price and doesn't bet against securities by borrowing to sell them in advnace (shorting.) Although long only is typically associated with mutual funds (asset management), some hedge funds also do not short stocks and are therefore long only. |
| LP | Limited partners, clients of an investment firm, the main types are high-net-worth people, wealthy families, pension funds, and sometimes sovereign wealth funds. |
| M&A | Mergers & Acquisitions: Refers to the act of two companies merging or one company acquiring another |
| MBB | McKinsey, Bain, BCG: The three most respected management consulting firms |
| MD | Managing Director, the highest Wall Street professional ranking for those who don't have managerial responsibilities |
| MF PE | Megafund Private Equity. Eg. Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle, Apollo |
| MM HF | Multi-manager Hedge Fund, also known as a "pod shop", is a platform that allocates capital to dozens of individual Portfolio Managers (PMs), allowing each team to independently generate solid risk-adjusted returns while minimizing volatility. These funds are usually multi-strategy as well. |
| MS | Morgan Stanley |
| O&G | Oil & Gas |
| OEM | Original Equipment Manufacturer |
| P&C | Property and Casualty Insurance |
| P2P | Peer to Peer |
| PB | Private Banking: Wealth management catering to high net-worth and ultra-high net-worth individuals |
| PE | Private Equity: Buy-side finance sector that uses leveraged buyouts to purchase and improve companies |
| PM | Portfolio Manager |
| PWM | Private Wealth Management: Finance sector focusing on managing the money of high net-worth individuals |
| S&T | Sales & Trading |
| SA | Supervisory Analyst. All equity research reports need to be reviewed by a FINRA-licensed Supervisory Analyst, ensuring that all research is compliant with FINRA, FCA, IIROC and jurisdictional rules and regulations and a firm's policies and procedures. |
| SM HF | Single-manager Hedge Fund, run by one individual Portfolio Manager (PM) with one Profit & Loss Statement (P&L) rather than multiple teams with multiple P&Ls. Eg. Third Point, Lone Pine, Eminence, Whale Rock |
| SMB | Small Medium Businesses |
| Tiger Cubs | A group of former Tiger Management employees who have since founded their own hedge funds. They are some of the most successful hedge funds in history. Eg. Lone Pine, Viking Global, Coatue, Maverick, Tiger Global |
| TMT | Technology, Media, & Telecom |
| VC | Venture Capital: A sub-sector of private equity focusing on companies in their early stages of development |
| WACC | Weighted Average Cost of Capital: Used in finance to measure a firm's cost of capital |