Updating Results

BlackRock Australia

4.7
  • 1,000 - 50,000 employees

Ella Hurley

Ella Hurley studied a Bachelor of Commerce (Financial Planning) at La Trobe University in 2017 and is an analyst at BlackRock.

6.50 AM

Time to wake up. I’ll be walking to work today. It’s only 2.5km away so it would be rude not to. I’ll grab a coffee on my way as a treat for waking up early (I’m not a morning person), and will feel buzzed by the time I get to the office.

8.30 AM

It’s warm in Sydney and I walked fast, so I had a shower and got ready downstairs in our building when I arrived. We’re pretty lucky to have end-of-trip facilities that give us the option to do this. I’m up in the office by now and going through my emails. I was monitoring them late last night but a few came in overnight from the UK. We’re working on a deal and trying to figure out how to structure the transaction from a tax perspective. This involves employing an external advisor (think global accounting firm) whilst utilising our internal Tax team. In this case, I’m liaising with an internal member of our Tax team in London. Sometimes it can be hard to coordinate time zones but luckily she’s been super quick with her responses.

8.50 AM

Another coffee is in order and it’s a good time to go because most people are in the office by now. I’ll grab one of my buddies from another business department so we can have a quick catch up too. 

9.00 AM

I need to keep working on the budget memo for this transaction. This means getting all the costs for the external advisors we employ and collating them into a document with an overview of the transaction. It’s essentially justification for how much we’re planning to spend during the due diligence process. We’ve employed five different advisors on this transaction and there is generally one person internally managing each relationship, so I’ve reached out to each of them for costs based on quotes they were given from the advisors. These people are also in different regions – New York, Tokyo, Dublin – the time zone battle is real.

Ella working on her desk

10.00 AM

I think I’ve done a pretty good job on the budget memo so I’ll send it across to one of the colleagues I’m working with for review. This is going to be looked at by a group of senior managers and will be sent on behalf of our team, so I need to make sure it’s right.

10.30 AM

Okay I’ve got a lot to work on. There are a few mark-ups on this.

11.00 AM

Time for our Asia Pacific (APAC) weekly team meeting. One of my bigger projects has been market research across APAC and I’ve been working on a deck we’ll present to the rest of our global team in a couple of weeks. This is a good chance to get feedback and ideas on my work. We’re in the process of doing a refinance on one of our projects so there’s also an update on that. We’re not far from approaching banks but there’s still a little more work to do. Another possible deal came in last week that everyone is excited about. It’s big but there’s no guarantee we’ll be shortlisted to put an offer in for it. In the meantime we’re engaging advisors to work on the buy-side with us. The sooner we approach them, the better, as they could also be approached on the sell-side of the project (working for the seller), which would put them in a conflicted position and unable to work for us on the transaction. After we put in a non-binding offer in a few weeks we’ll see if we’re shortlisted for this one. 

Half of our team are travelling next week to raise capital for our next global fund, so we’re discussing that too. We’ve been reaching out to our contacts to help set up meetings with potential investors. These include the likes of pension funds, insurers etc. 

We talk about the timeline for the deal we’re working on. Everything seems on track for now. We’re working quickly on this one.

One of my colleagues brings up an information event held later this week by one of the market consultants. Most of the team are busy so they offer for me to go. I’ll be down for that!

My boss informs me I need to start working on the Investment Committee paper for the deal. This is the final document that goes to our Investment Committee (think very, very senior people) and is the main paper for whenever someone wants to reference back to the project. I’ll have to get started on this soon as we need to go through it before the team departs for capital-raising meetings next week.

12.00 PM

We’ve got a corporate netball team that plays once a week at nearby courts so I’m rushing downstairs to get ready. It’s a good chance to speak to colleagues you may not cross over with much. As per usual, we win. Time for another shower.

1.00 PM

I’m eating lunch at my desk today because I spent a decent amount of time away playing netball. I’ve grabbed the usual – a salad. It’s a little disappointing but I don’t like sitting back at the desk on a full stomach. I’ll scroll through news and articles while I eat.

1.30 PM

We’ve got a call with the advisors managing the refinance on one of our projects. I’m taking notes while my team members do the heavy lifting. They know a lot more about it than me so best to listen for now.

2.30 PM

I need to keep working on a deck for the managing director in my team. He’s presenting to a large institution on his next trip and the materials need to be sent across to our Sales team today. I’m trying to run a coordinated effort with another colleague based in London. This has been a little trickier to manage. I’ve set up a call later on tonight to talk through this with my London colleague.

4.00 PM

We’ve got another call and I’ve set this one up. It’s with the financial institutions working on our deal. They want an overview of the transaction as they’re going to start their due diligence. I go through the basics and they come back with questions. One of my colleagues helps out. Lucky I’ve got him on the call with me.

4.30 PM

I’ve been sitting here for a while now so I need to go for a walk. I chat to one of my buddies on our internal system and head downstairs to the food court for a break.

4.50 PM

I need to start working on the Investment Committee paper for the deal. I pull up one of the previous ones as a template and start working on this. I’ll have to use our financial model to fill in some of the financial metrics such as levered IRR, cash yield, contract pricing etc.

6.30 PM

I’m feeling extra ambitious today so I’m going to a gym class. Barre it is. It’s not too far from work.

7.30 PM

I’m all done with Barre so I’m heading home and will grab something for dinner on the way. I can’t be bothered cooking tonight and have a call later on so need to prep for that.

8.45 PM

I’m taking a call from home with my colleague from London who’s helping me out with the presentation deck. I need his help with some investment flow statistics. It only takes 20 minutes. Finally, the deck is finished. Time to send.

10.30 PM

I’ll have a quick scan through my emails before I head off to sleep. The UK is online and are well underway with their day. They’ve started sending emails through but luckily it’s not urgent. Given that I have a late call tonight my boss has said that I should come into the office a bit later tomorrow. Responses can wait until then.