What Does "Turning Comments" Mean in Investment Banking? (An Analyst's Survival Guide)
Quick Answer
In investment banking, "turning comments" refers to the process of an Analyst or Associate updating a financial model or pitchbook based on the edits, corrections, and feedback (the "comments") provided by a Vice President or Managing Director. While AI tools can now handle basic formatting, a human analyst's ability to interpret the strategic intent behind an MD's comments, execute them accurately under pressure, and learn from the feedback loop is the primary metric by which their performance is judged.
If you just landed your first investment banking internship or full-time analyst role, you are probably expecting your day-to-day life to mirror the movies—high-stakes negotiations, executing complex financial models, and closing billion-dollar deals.
The reality is much less glamorous. As a junior banker, you are going to spend 80% of your time doing one thing: Turning comments. Understanding what this process actually looks like, and how to execute it flawlessly, is the difference between being a top-tier analyst who gets promoted to Private Equity, and the analyst who burns out in six months.
Here is an MD's perspective on the lifecycle of a markup, the unspoken rules for turning comments, and why this process is actually the ultimate masterclass in high finance.
What Does the "Markup" Actually Look Like?
When you finish a draft of a 50-page M&A pitchbook, you don't just email it to the client. You send it to your Associate, who reviews it and sends it to your VP, who reviews it and sends it to the Managing Director.
At every step of that chain, senior bankers will find things they want changed.
Historically, a VP would print your slide deck, take a red pen, and physically cross out words, rewrite headlines, and circle formatting errors. Today, it usually comes in the form of a heavily annotated PDF with digital sticky notes.
"Turning" those comments means sitting at your desk—often at midnight—going through that PDF page by page, executing every single requested change in PowerPoint or Excel, and sending back the "new turn" (the updated version) for another round of review.
3 Rules for Turning Comments Without Ruining Your Reputation
Most first-year analysts panic when they receive a slide deck bleeding with red ink. They try to rush through the changes to prove how fast they are. This is a fatal error.
Accuracy is 10X more important than speed
If a VP gives you 45 comments on a pitchbook, and you turn it around in 30 minutes but miss 3 of the comments, you have failed. The VP now has to re-check your work, which completely destroys their trust in you. It is always better to take an extra 20 minutes to be 100% accurate than to be fast and sloppy.
Use the "Yellow Highlighter" Method
Never rely on your memory. If you are working from a physical printout, take a yellow highlighter and physically highlight the red-pen markup only after you have made the change in your computer. If you are using a PDF, use the "check" or "resolve" function on the digital comment. Do not send the new turn to your Associate until every single comment has been highlighted or resolved.
The "So What?" Test: Why AI Won't Replace the Analyst
With the rapid advancement of technology, many incoming analysts wonder if "turning comments" is a dying art.
It is true that modern AI tools can easily move a table, perfectly align logos, and execute sweeping formatting changes in seconds. But AI cannot interpret the intent behind an MD's chicken-scratch in the margins. Real humans are still required to interpret those comments.
The Real Learning Process
To be a top-tier analyst, you cannot just blindly process edits. You have to sit back, look at the markup, and ask yourself: "So what? Why is my MD making this specific comment? Does this actually make sense in the context of the broader deal?"
Asking those questions and fully understanding why an MD is asking for changes is the core of the iterative learning process in investment banking. I learned more as a junior banker just watching my MDs' actions than I ever did in a formal training program.
When you finally sit in a live client pitch and see how your MD presents that exact slide you stayed up until 2:00 AM fixing, the original comment finally clicks. You see how they use that specific data point to control the narrative or handle a client's objection. It is a massive, real-time feedback loop.
This is exactly why AI will likely reduce the sheer volume of analysts needed to crank out pages, but it will never fully replace them. The "art" of the deal business is built on subtleties. An AI model can ingest copious amounts of historical pitchbooks from a bank's storage drives, but it will always have a hard time picking up on the nuanced, human elements of advising a client.
Key Takeaways
"Turning comments" is the process of updating models and pitchbooks based on senior banker feedback—it's 80% of an analyst's job
Accuracy is 10X more important than speed—missing comments destroys trust with senior bankers
Use the "Yellow Highlighter" method to track every single comment and ensure nothing is missed
Ask "So what?" to understand the strategic intent behind each comment—this is where real learning happens
AI can handle formatting, but human analysts are irreplaceable for interpreting nuanced feedback and strategic context
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