Q&A: European PE Professional

Really depends on your existing situation (are you already in a PE firm?).

If you are and its a global firm, ask for a transfer.

If you're not already in PE, I would focus on reaching out to European headhunters and focusing your interviewing efforts on American funds with a meaningful Europe office. To name a few - KKR, BX, Advent, Bain Capital, Apollo, TPG etc.

Its important, but not quite so straightforward if you don't have "relevant" experience.

What I mean is if you're not already in IBD or Consulting, its not that easy to just "do an MBA and get into PE". Typically PE juniors already have relevant professional experiences. Rarely do I see MBAs jump into PE with a totally non-IBD and non-MBB background, unless its a really small LMM fund.

If the route you are looking for is MBA or MSc > Consulting or IBD > PE, then I would personally go for a MSc (simply because it saves a year in time and cost, without losing the benefit of pivoting).

Hope that helps

Sure of course. Happy to help. Shoot me a PM

Answers to each question below: 1) Are there going to be spots open for people who are non-european and don't speak the local languages?

• If you can't speak european languages comfortably, you are likely limited to London, maybe Switzerland / Dublin / Luxembourg as a real push. The reality is that local offices are set-up in Europe to do exactly that - local deal-making (which require local languages)

• That being said, there's TONS of hope in London itself is a huge, huge market. Any major European or US PE fund would likely have a sizeable office here.

2) How is the PE process different between US and Europe? Are there any particular things you would recommend prepping for?

Key differences are:

• i) no crazy "on-cycle" recruiting - the only common periods for hiring is post bonus (which in Europe is Jan / July, because most bonuses are paid Dec / June). These are for formal processes. I would say 20-30% of the time there are random hirings as well that are completely independent

• ii) Hiring is less aggressive vs. US - you will never see an analyst 1 getting an offer for 2 years down the road. Never ever.

• iii) Applicants are quite mature in age vs. US in my opinion. Loads of them do masters / b-school. In itself, I don't think this has any real implication for the competitiveness of the process, but just an observation

How to prep:

I could go into crazy detail on this because I personally went full pedal to the metal, but here are my "top tips" for the core elements of the process

• Consulting Case Studies: almost every firm will dish this out at some point. Early on in the process you get really quick and dirty "consulting" ones that they literally come up with from thin air. Usually very hypothetical, like market sizing, how to turn around an unprofitable business etc.

The best way to prepare for this is honestly the same as preparing for a case interview at an MBB firm - but don't do this half-assed. You really have to go all-in to "get" what they are really trying to see (structured, logical, business problem solving). Its time-consuming so I would limit myself to 10-15 cases of different situations (but really think through the structure, business logic, and problem solving approach)

• Modelling: be crazy fast on the model so you can actually answer the Q&A part of the test, or just check your work more often. Modelling in itself won't impress them (I mean its a 2 hour test - how crazy can you get?) - getting the answers crisp and intelligent will (they usually ask some qualitative questions at the end - show off your investor mindset here)

• Investing Case Study: the difference between this and the commercial/consulting case study is that this gives you a ton of data (usually in a CIM or Management Presentation deck) and expect you to answer the question "is this a good investment"?

There are tons of threads on this site but my biggest advice is to power through all the available resources online and COME UP WITH A FRAMEWORK you will consistently use. Everything in investing needs a framework - you don't just mystically come up with topics that are "positives" and "negatives". For example, evaluating a software company will have the same core elements (Revenue Retention Bridge, Customer Cohort Analysis, Stickiness of users....etc.). You have to find a way to grab those core elements for the investment at hand.

I personally had a framework for every major industry (TMT, Industrials, Consumer & Retail, Healthcare, Business Services)

3) Is it possible to recruit as an Associate 1- Associate 2 in Europe,. I know this is nearly impossible in US.

• Of course! Europe is more accepting of mature profiles as mentioned above. I've seen Associate 1s here at tier 1 shops at the age of 35....and the average age should be late 20s, Unless your title is VP and above, I think you have some real flexibility here in Europe

Not to brag about my post but it covers all of your questions : https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/20-most-frequently-asked-questio…

Hi,

• Case studies: these are very common, when I say "consulting" i mean some variant of it. It might not be like a full blown case interview MCK style, but they might take just 1-2 types of cases to test you. Even if they aren't operationally focused, people still want to know if you can evaluate a business

• Mental maths is really interviewer dependent. No firm goes out saying "oh we need to include mental maths because if they cant square root 100 in their head, they are a no go". I'm sure 3-4/10 interviewers will toss it in just to see if you are arbitrarily "smart"

• There's tons of continental Europeans in London. Keep in mind that every firms hires PER OFFICE, they don't hire for the entire global workforce and go "this french guy goes to Paris, this German guy goes to Frankfurt....". The point is London is inherently an international workforce. People come here to do international deals and so if the applicant pool has >50% non-English...that's kind of how the actual workforce would turn out?

• Headhunters usually hold the key, but no harm trying to network with people in the firm. I would say i) at the end, headhunters will be pissed if you cut them, and they will 100% find out, ii) funds themselves might be obligated to pay the headhunters a fixed success fee, even if you approach them yourselves. There are usually agreements in place and thus the fund might still ask you to do it through the headhunter

• ESG is a real trend in the industry but don't be fooled to think every buyout fund now makes it the central core focus of their 24 hour day. A good investment is a good investment...and they hope it fits some sort of ESG criteria so it doesn't get shot down in investment committee. This is just the plain reality of it. Not to say its not important...but if you ran a PE firm as a managing partner, you will always, regardless of your personal beliefs, tell LPs that you "love ESG and everything has an ESG framework". In practice...a good deal is a good deal... If everyone was so ESG - why not exclusively only invest in ESG companies? (which nobody does; they just set up an ESG fund and say they do their part)

• hate to give a hard verdict on this because behavioural shifts are very hard to predict. But directionally, I do think that people who’ve been against using technology for this type of flexible working from home setups are now aware and open that it totally works. if I had to guess, I think the commercial real estate market (office space is one of the highest overheads) will see some structural demand reduction, albeit it takes time for the leases renewing to reflect this. I also think people may genuinely shift their attitudes towards business travelling - flying for half a day for a 2 hour introductory meeting never really made sense to most people but it was the norm. perhaps now, if I’m thinking wishfully, people will only use business travel for important key milestone meetings vs any random meeting

• I recommend PE insights / PE NEWs and mergermarket. I think mergermarket goes a bit deeper into the deal overview but is a paid service. Pitchbook does a decent job too and I think you can get a trial

• I don’t know specific deep dive resources, but I would say the law firms K&E, Simpson Thatcher and Weil have some white papers online that gives you bits and bobs for context.

I would say the traditional structure in Europe is to use ‘shareholder loan notes’ as equity, mainly because it’s tax deductible to an extent. debt structures aren’t very novel and it shouldn’t differ too much in terms of what is possible in the US. hope this is helpful and apologies if it’s not the deep insight you were hoping for! I always find legal stuff hardest to find good resources for learning. even associates at law firms take years to actually get the commercial big picture and framing that we PE folks are trying to achieve

no problem.

I see your POV but think differently. I wouldn’t be so concerned about macro situation etc. the only 3 things I’m concerned with is I) am I ready to deliver rock solid interview performance? II) are my top choices available on the market right now? III) do I fit their paper criteria like min. years / background based on what the HH in charge says, and he will put me through the process?

if all criteria is checked, there is no such thing as ‘the right time’. nobody can guarantee the future state of the employment market even a year from now - so if it’s out there, and you know that you’re ready, carpe diem all the way. just my two cents

1)What funds do you think are most willing to take English only speakers? - Funds that have several local offices are most willing to take English speakers. For instance, BX only has one main office in London and for that reason, they need a lot of european speakers given they do Europe out of a central London Hub - on the other hand, funds like Advent with a tons of local offices actually don't mind hiring many english-speaking only folks in their London office, given their local offices fulfil the other languages. You can judge this at a high level just by scoping their website - As an alternative, UK focused mid-market funds like 3i / Bridgepoint might also hire you

2) Networking - did you do any for the role you landed? I have been thinking about reaching out to a few people with similar backgrounds at funds I like, but don't want to come across as too aggressive. Conscious that a lot of the discussion on this site is focussed on the US which has quite different attitudes / expectations in this area - I did not network, but I think its perfectly fine to do so - you are right about the difference between US vs. Eur on this topic, so I would just word your outreach message more carefully. Don't sound like you expect it and definitely do not be aggresssive. Keep it short, friendly and brief is my advice

3) Comp - are there any good publicly available data points on comp? It seems very opaque, which makes it hard to assess the pros / cons vs. Banking and plan out a career. Particularly interesting in the mid market funds (maybe PS500m-PS1bn fund size), as I'm conscious as an English only speaker these are the most likely funds to take me on) - I think you need to ask HH for this esp. if its mid-market funds. there's a lot of variance between them. For banking, its pretty standard so you can take it from any report on google literally.

4) What are your thoughts on the large pension funds / SWFs? They seem to be playing an increasing role from an outside perspective - You're right, a lot of them are trying to have more exposure via i) Co-invest team, ii) Directs team. - the issue here is that they can never do what "real PE" do because of the inherent conflicts of interest. You will never see a SWF do the type of value creation real PE funds do. Most of them can't even own >50% by mandate (e.g. GIC PE team can never do this)

Hope that helps