Below is a list of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) by some of our clients:
1) How is it possible that you charge less than $2,000 for 120-hours of live in-class training, as opposed to $2,500 or even more in some cases, which offer much less than 30-hours of training; such as Matchett Group, Euromoney Training, or New York Institute of Finance? Please explain. 2) Why do you offer a total of 120 hours of training while others are offering less than 30 hours? 3) Can I register for a course at any of your 4 participating locations located in Manhattan? 4) Why do you provide all course materials prior to the start of the course while others do not? 5) How many students are in each class, and why do you utilize 2 instructors while other do not? 6) Do you offer trial classes for clients interested in enrolling in one or more of your program(s)? 7) Do you provide clients with placement assistance, resume drafting and interview preparation? 8) Can I speak to or meet with one of the class instructors(s) prior to registering for the course? 9) What is the background of the instructor(s) and are they currently employed in the industry? 10) Do you offer on-site training for corporate clients and provide group and volume discounts?
1) How is it possible that you charge less than $2,000 for 120-hours of live in-class training, as opposed to $2,500 or even more in some cases, which offer much less than 30-hours of training; such as Matchett Group, Euromoney Training or New York Institute of Finance? Please explain. Believe it or not, and much to the surprise hof our fellow competitors, any interested clients can now register for our exclusive 120-hour program for only $2,000 (during selected times of the year). We offer the most competitive pricing available anywhere, which is fully-backed by our simple business promise, as well as our price-matching policy, in the event a customer is able to obtain a better price quotation from one of our industry competitors (see PEFIN Pricing Policy). Due to the large number of students we enroll every month, we are now in a position to pass on, and provide for, large scale discounts directly to our customers. It has always been our policy, to work with each and every single one of our clients, in finding customized solutions to help them finance their professional training and educational needs. This is the reason why, we are able to offer flexible payment plans and financing options to all of our clients, no matter what time of the year the client decides to take the course. Through our proprietary sliding scale pricing system, a student is able to register as early as 12 months ahead of time, and as late as 2 weeks before the beginning of the course (depending on seating availability). The earlier that the client registers for a course, the more of a discount he or she will be entititled to receive (up to 50% off the regular price). But regardless of your particular financial situation, you should give us a call at (212) 380-6999 in order to find out how we can help you enroll in one classes being offered throughout the academic year. Just remember, the most important thing for the student, is to have a strong interest, or alternatively, an absolute need of learning the highest level of finance, whether you have you are a professional or an individual pursuing a career in the field principal investing, investment banking or corporate finance.
2) Why do you offer a total of 120 hours of training while others are offering less than 30 hours?
The short answer is, that it takes the average investment or banking professional with 2 or more years of work experience in the financial industry (analyst level and above) an estimated 40 to 120 hours to conceptualize, structure, implement and test a basic financial model, depending on the skill level and intellectual capacity of the individual. However, in some cases when working on a transaction about to be consummated or live deal, a financial model can take anywhere from 3 to 12 months in order to complete, depending on the level of sophistication and risks associated with the investment at hand. Given this fact, we believe that the minimum amount of training required for someone to learn the skill of financial modeling is a minimum of 40 hours or more. Put another way, anything less would require the individual to seek further guidance from a senior level professional, or simply attempt to learn independently through trial-and-error, something we do not recommend, due to the level of complexity. In response to this issue, PEFIN offers the longest and most comprehensive training program available anywhere, in terms of number of hours of class instruction, through our 40/80/120 hour training program (see PEFIN Training Program). However, we do not charge more for these class offerings, but rather, substantially less than our competition (see PEFIN Pricing Information). Does it sound to good to be true? Not necessarily; maybe it is simply the fact that we work harder than anyone else and really enjoy what we do, and furthermore, we do not outsource the teaching to other instructors outside of our firm. Therefore, acting as both owners and operators, we do not incur any unnecessary overhead expenses. We are dedicated team of finance professionals in the field of education, and have been doing this long enough to understand how long it generally takes to train an individual, by giving them the basic tools that they need for their job, at school, or even at a personal level. Simply stated, 40 hours or more of training is equivalent to a full-time work week (unfortunately, this is not the case in the the finance industry). Or put another way, a graduate level (MBA) or college level (Bachelor) course is equivalent to approximately 100 hours of classroom time if enrolled in a 3.0 credit course at an accredited college or university (3 hours per class x 2 meetings per week x 16 weeks per semester = 96 hours in total)
3) Can I register for a course at any of your 4 participating locations located in Manhattan?
Over the past decade or so, PEFIN has expanded considerably, largely in response to the increase in demand for our products and services. Since inception in 2000, we have trained a large number of corporate clients and individual customers, which today stands at well over 10,000 if one takes the sum-of-the-parts. Presently, we have 4 training locations situated throughout New York City, including East Midtown, where our corporate headquarters is conveniently located, Financial District, Battery Park Plaza, Pennylvania Station, and New York University. If you need to register for a course, please call in advance in order to set-up an appointment with one of our training instructors and/or a member of our teaching staff located at 295 Madison Avenue (@ 41st Street). Alternatively, clients may also register at any of our other training locations in Manahattan listed above (see PEFIN Contact Information). Please note that new clients wishing to register for one or more courses will also need to bring the following list of items to the their in-person consultation: (1) tuition payment, (2) laptop computer, (3) portable drive, (4) resume or credentials, and (5) state, federal or international identification. For those clients that are non-New York residents (Continental U.S. and International) you need to call our corporate headquarters in order to discuss how we can assist you in registering over the phone for one of our upcoming training programs. Our classes are conducted at different locations throughout Manhattan, depending on the type of course being offered (basic, intermediate or advanced) so please make sure to find out where the class will be held. Lastly, we would also like to thank all of our existing customers as well as our new customers, for their patronage and on-going business, who over the years, have allowed PEFIN to expand and continue to provide the highest quality of service to its clients.
4) Why do you provide all course materials prior to the start of the course while other do not?
Of course we distribute all the information that the client might need ahead of time; after all this is an intricate and important part of the learning process, something that we will never try to tamper with, and neither should others who refuse to give course materials until the first day of class. If the student-client is paying for it, they should be entitled to receive the information immediately. Part of the reason why clients decide to register early for a course, is to enable them to digest the information in an adequate timeframe, in order to maximize the retention rate and increase the ability to process new information presented throughout the course with relative ease and speed. If you are a prospective student-client, this should be among the top priorities on your list, when researching different types of training programs available. Otherwise, you will never quite know what kind of information you are really getting, until you see it for the first time. We know that you will definifely not be disappointed with ours, which includes the most comprehensive library of information available anywhere on Wall Street; including our (1) training manuals which cover financial, legal, tax and accounting information; (2) case-study guides which provide for actual principal and agency transactions across a wide selection of industries including the consumer, transportation and industrial sectors, among others; as well as (3) financial modeling templates which can be utilized for debt and equity principal investments, as well as buy-side and sell-side advisory transactions. In addition, please make sure to ask about our- step-by-step description of how to build a financial model, which details a self-study guide for all levels of work, industry and software experience. In addition, we provide all of our clients with unlimited access to our exclusive PEFIN Career Newsletter at the time in which they register, and as a student of PEFIN, clients continue to receive this information throughout their lifetime, even after completion of the training program.
5) How many students are in each class, and why do you utilize 2 instructors while other do not?
PEFIN guarantees that the class size will never exceeed more than 5 registered clients, in addition to the presence of 1 class instructor and 1 teaching assistant per single class. The reason is that it is a proven fact, that having a small classroom format, as opposed to a large scale university type setting where there are typically in excess of 10 attendees, students are unable to effectively participate and interact with the teaching staff. In addition to this problem, there is generally a desire among our student-body to have a more personalized feeling within the class, in order for students to develop a working and/or personal relationship with their fellow classmates. Throughout the program, there are many group exercises, and the more students there are in a single classroom, the less the retention and learning rate of the individual will be. Also, it is our sincere desire to customize the class as much as possible according to the interests and/or needs of our clients, and having a smaller classroom size, allows the instructor(s) to more effectively tailor the content of the course. In addition, it is important to realize that due to the artificially low student-to-instructor ratio we maintain, basically translates into better pricing for studetns, by finding out the price per hour of class instruction, accounding to the number of instructors and teaching assistants present in each class. PEFIN presently offers the most competitive tuitition rate in the industry at less than $200 per class per hour (includes all students combined), relative to some of our industry competitors which start at $1,500 and can go as high as $10,000 in some extraordinary cases. We can easily deduce this fact, by utilizing the following formula described below:
(Number of Students / Number of Instructors) x (Tuition Cost Per Student / Total Training Hours)
In addition, spacing and square footage in New York City is always an important matter at hand. Much like the subway and public transportation system of Manhattan, having an overcrowded classroom filled with people, can severely impact on the ability of the client to feel comfortable in their setting, and thus can significantly reduce the overall retention and learning rate of the student. In response to this problem, PEFIN offers luxurious spacing accomodations for all its clients, equipped with state-of-the-art technology and other research capabilities, where we limit the number of students per classroom, in addition to providing 1 instructor and 1 teaching assistant in each class. The reason for having a teaching assistant in all of our classes is that students, more often than not, need additional guidance at the individual level, and it is physically impossible for the single class instructor to assist all clients present at once, without being able to keep-up with the course curriculum and slowing down the rest of the students. Our teaching assistants generally provide specific guidance with the more technical questions at hand, such as additional help as needed, in the use of software applications in MS Excel, including developing and implementing formulas (lookups, reference, statistical, mathematical and logical functions). While most of the other training programs do not utilize teaching assistants, because they rather minimize their overhead costs, by cutting down on employee expenses, PEFIN believes that having teaching assistants present in every class is a fundamental part of the teaching and learning process.
6) Do you offer trial classes for clients interested in enrolling in one or more of your program(s)?
It has always been our internal policy to be as transparent as possible when it come to education with any prospective clients, although we hope that our reputation which we worked very hard to establish over the past decade or so, will serve as an indication of the quality of the service we provide, in addition to the volume of students we have trained since inception in the year 2000 (over 10,000). In addition, for those clients interested in taking our program, and that show a financial commitment to such, we offer them the unique possibility to register for the abbreviated 10-hour "crash course" with the opportunity to extend the length of the training program for an additional 30 hours. Please note that any tuitition costs paid to PEFIN will automatically become deductible from the 40-hour training program (40 hours - 10 hours = 30 hours). Unfortunately, we are unable to offer commitment-free trial classes to all prospective clients, due to the fact that we need to ensure that our clients are able to afford the course financially. If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions, please contact our central office at (212) 380-6999, or any other of our participating locations in Manhattan.
7) Do you provide clients with placement assistance, resume drafting and interview preparation?
The layman's answer to this querstion is that PEFIN offers a professional and career development program, and whenever possible, we provide help in any area(s) in which can potentially add value to our customers, including job placement assistance. From time to time, our corporate clients will request a particular profile which matches that of a student enrolled in one of our training programs, and through our recommendation, more often than not, the client will be carefully considered for the position (however, we cannot guarantee any future results). In addition, we publish the PEFIN Career Newsletter, in order to provide our clients with the most exclusive information available anywhere, for job openings both in the principal investing and investment banking industry. While other training programs offer you the promise of a job, clients should be made fully aware of the statistics for landing a position in the highly competitive field of finance, which presently stands at 1 in 10,000 for investment banking and 1 in 100,000 for private equity per number of applications received by potential employers. Furthermore, PEFIN is not in the business of prefessional recruiting, but rather financial training, and as such, our focus is solely on education, and increasing the chances of those seeking to make a career transition, through one of our specialized training program. It should also be noted that on average, 3 out of 4 students enrolled in our classes are currently employed; to emphasize the fact that we are first and foremost, a professional training program, as opposed to a headhunter.
8) Can I speak to or meet with one of the class instructors(s) prior to registering for the course?
When you call or contact PEFIN at our central headquarters at (212) 380-6999, or any other of our participating locations throughout Manhattan (see PEFIN Contact Information) you will have the opportunity to speak directly to one of our dedicated team of training instructors or supporting teaching staff, as opposed to some cheap salesman or smalltime business owner who will try to push down your throat, various products and/or services they provide. Since many of them tend to make a living on a commission-fee basis, more often than not, they lack the financial understanding, educational background, and teaching experience to effectively explain the content of the course to prospective clients. As such, we strongly encourage inquiring clients to ask to speak directly over the phone to the main training instructor, and if at all possible, with their teaching assistant, as part of the general due diligence, research and investigation process. Clients should be aware that PEFIN is also an independently-owned firm, managed and operated by a small and specialized group of finance and banking professionals, all of which are currently employed by the most prominent principal and investment banking firms on Wall Street, and that take the time to teach during their non-working or off-peak hours (please make sure to ask for their resume and deal list in addition to client references). When calling PEFIN, inquiring clients will be cordially and respectfully treated, without any type of sales pressure or registration deadlines. This is the reason why PEFIN utilizes a proprietary sliding scale pricing system, in order to eliminate any time of sales pressure imposed on the client. Basically, the earlier the student registers for a course, the more a discount he/she will receive (up to 50% discounts are available for early registration). In addition, since we offer multiple courses, as well as as different types of training programs throughout the year, we do not feel the need to register clients when they call for the first time. Instead, we try to ask our clients to take their time in making an educated and financial decision about enrolling in our training program.
9) What is the background of the instructor(s) and are they currently employed in the industry?
PEFIN's team of training instructors and teaching assistants are all working professionals at the leading investment and financial firms on Wall Street,; who take the time to teach during their non-working and/or off-peak schedule. It has always been our internal policy, to recruit the most experienced and talented trainers on Wall Street. In order to qualify as a training instructor, they must possess all of the following three requirements: (1) have a minimum of 20 years of work experience in the principal investing and/or investment banking industry; (2) have at leasty 10 or more years of financial training and/or teaching experience with an accredit college, university or educational institution; and (3) be presently employed on a full-time basis, with an investment fund and/or investment bank. The reason we maintain such strict standards and qualifications for all of our industructors, as well as our teaching assistants, is that our professional staff needs to be closely in touch with the latest trends, methods and changes associated with the accounting and financial industries; in addition to demonstrating a strong ability to utilize our unique and proprietary technique, also known as the PEFIN Matrix Model. As a new customer, student-clients should always ask before registering for a particular course, for the training instructor's and teaching assistant's resume and their latest list of consummated investments and/or transactions. Many instructor's may claim to have principal investing experience, or even a buyout record, but more often than not, they do not have the right qualifications, so please make sure to conduct your own due diligence.
10) Do you offer on-site training for corporate clients and provide group and volume discounts?
More than 50% of our clients are corporate in nature, and in excess than 75% are employed, as opposed to other clients or individual customers that are still in school or otherwise. As such, we specialize in the training of these professionals by offering them on-site, customized training, at their location of preference. In the past, we have worked with a large number of clients, some of them which include prominent financial, investment, corporate, legal, consulting, and general industry firms from around the world (please see PEFIN Track Record). Depending on the designated budget of each corporate client, we try to find a customized financing solution to meet their specific needs and requirements, in addition to providing them with a class-by-class outline, time schedule, course length, and a team of dedicated instructors and teaching assistants. Please note, however, that we do not provide consulting or outsourcing services to third parties, or other types of services which are not strictly associated with financial training - remember, we are solely in the business of education and all of our main training instructors are both owners and/or under legal contracts with PEFIN Incorporated. Lastly, PEFIN does not provide for, or make any fees o the placement of job candidates looking for a position in the field of finance, and do not act as intermediaries or headhunters.
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