Summer - BX RE vs. Top3 BB IBD
Hi guys,
The title quite says it all; have received Summer Analyst offers from a top3 BB for IBD and from BX REPE.
I'm more interested in PE as it is my middle-term goal to land a job in a (large) PE fund, however, not sure about RE investing, though I have to say that I hardly see myself declining a BX offer...
Would you recommand going with BX and hopefully lateral to their Corporate Private Equity practice or at another firm, or stick to M&A at a BB for the summer role and hopefully move to PE later?
Many thanks in advance for your input
Do you know the bb group?
Not yet! I've heard group allocation happens later (like April, 2 months before joining), which doesn't really help... I have to say it would bump me out to join FIG or Energy, as my personal preferences lean more towards TMT/Healthcare.
Congratulations on the offers! I imagine they are well deserved.
May I ask in which region you got the BX offer from? Thanks in advance
I would 100% take the BX offer and try to lateral. My reasoning being that even if you get into a top group at a top BB, there is absolutely no guarantee you will get into a firm like BX (not saying you wont but you will be up against a lot of top grads from the top EBs too)
If you are in the US, BX may force you out to do your MBA after 2 years, at which point you could then try to look at the traditional PE route with BX on your resume.
Thank you for your valuable input, I really appreciate it! I think i will take the offer at BX indeed.
Couple thoughts: BX has been building out their RE franchise for years and the majority of their Corp PE associates still come from banks (eg I think they take 1-2 Tac Opps analysts, 2-3 Corp PE analysts and 8-10 Re analysts). Point being, I think you’ll find it very difficult to transition internally when I’ve heard there’s actually pressure from above in the opposite direction. Not saying you shouldn’t go there and I imagine you wouldn’t have too much trouble recruiting for generalist banking roles after your summer, I just want to caveat what people say about the Blackstone name and buy side out of undergrad. Obviously it’d be a lot easier if you knew the bb group (/firm) since that would play a big part of my decision.
Regardless, I would choose BX because of the reasons I mentioned about the MBA and avoiding IB.
Interestingly, a friend of mine had a colleague at Citadel, who was ex-BX REPE, who he said was the sharpest anf highest earning analyst there. He does global equities at Citadel despire 2 years at BX doing REPE, so I do not see it as limiting.
Take the BX offer. If it turns out you don't like RE you can always adjust your vertical focus later in your career since this is just your summer analyst stint. If you do like RE, you're golden and just sit tight.
Bump! I have a friend in the same situation and needs advice (for London 2021). Does the same applies to Europe? Is BX REPE SA > GS/MS/JPM SA?
thanks!
cap
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Not sure there’s a better group out of college than BX REPE...it’s also known to be a feeder to the top hedge funds if you’re interested in that route. Short answer, always take BX REPE.
Do other MFs such as Oaktree, Ares, and KKR (their REPE and RE credit teams) feed into hedge funds as well? If so, what’s compensation look like?
I work at one of those shops and it’s not know for that. I’ve only heard that BX is.
There are many better groups out of college than BX REPE. One would be BX Corporate PE for example -- that's the true feeder into top hedge funds. Don't think anyone from BX REPE ever leaves... real estate is a pretty niche industry and hard to recruit to a corporate-focused hedge fund. What makes you think it's a top feeder into hedge funds?
Not arguing with you at all, but I though BX’s REPE division was the biggest PE fund they had (I guess I’m wrong and they dominate every asset class). Regardless, I’ve worked with two former BX REPE employees (both were brilliant) so there are people who do leave due to burnout (the hours are absurd and the intensity of the work is through the roof). One of the employees considered the hedge fund route, but ended up sticking to real estate. Your definitely right that corporate pe is the most likely path to a hedge fund.
I vote BX because not knowing the group placement is a huge variable that you have accurately identified. Everyone will want the popular groups, it is pretty easy to end up in the groups that you are mentioning and if you aren't gung-ho on IB it will only make it worse. I think you will be happier at BX, but I also don't know you so there's that lol...
I know someone who started in BX RE as an Analyst and is currently a principal there. Had absolutely no interest in RE but took the offer and now loves the job..
How's BREDS reputation? is it a good group? would you take that over GS IB classic? for Analyst FT
BREDS is a good group. Depends on your long-term career goals. I personally wouldn't have taken it over GS IB classic, by a hair, because (1) credit investing outside of distressed/ssits doesn't really train much intellectual rigor; (2) I wanted to have the flexibility to do OpCo jobs like corp PE, VC, corpdev, etc.
Credit investing is specialized. Real estate investing is specialized too. That said, with enough legwork/talent/branding, people have transitioned out of them. But BREDS is literally real estate credit investing, the super specialized intersection of 2 already-specialized fields. I can see being able to move to corporate credit, or to real estate equity, but if you want to move anywhere else (CorpDev, growth equity etc), it would be too much work imo. In comparison GS IB classic would be more straightforward, with similar branding effect.
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Assuming the goal is to be on the buyside (whether corp, re, credit etc) and nothing else, definitely can say the career development from a BX REPE analyst stint is better than anything on the sell-side. The level of underwriting rigor you get trained into you is nuts compared to IBD, second only to BCP / BTO at BX, or maybe Silver Lake / similar MF analyst programs. After spending every week listening to investment committee (Tony James, Jon Gray etc) debate about deals, plus with the BX branding, it's quite easy to transition from BX REPE to Corp PE / HF.
does this apply to all BX RE groups? BREIT, BREDS, AM, BREP?
BREP is BX REPE btw but the other groups don't carry the same effect. The reason BREP does is because of the sheer volume of transactions, the granularity of analysis and the complexity of some of the deals
Applies mostly just to BX REPE (aka BREP as pointed out below). The other names you've mentioned are either credit-type investing with its own nice category of exit ops (which was covered above), or non-investing roles. Didn't know there was a separate BREIT team now, but if you're just doing BREIT then you are only doing asset-level investments in very specific vanilla CRE verticals, and you will not be touching any of the juicy transactions BREP sometimes does, which include: big ticket public company LBOs like Hilton, operational verticals like gaming/lodging, or complex deals co-underwritten with BCP/BTO, etc. So BREIT experience would be super welcomed in any RE shop on the street I'm sure, but hard to spin it towards corporate-level investing.
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