Blackstone / PJT Exit Opps

A friend forwarded me this list of analysts / associates destination of Blackstone and PJT Partners (onwards) classes in New York and London. More info in the US. Enjoy, apologies for the long list:

Blackstone NY:

  • Blackstone
  • FFL
  • Sycamore Partners
  • TA Associates
  • Centerbridge
  • York Capital Managment
  • Maverick Capital
  • Carlyle
  • TH Lee
  • Farallon Capital
  • Jet Capital
  • Bain Capital
  • Hellman & Friedman
  • Altamont
  • NYC Investment Fund
  • Highline Capital
  • KKR
  • Och-Ziff Capital
  • Berkshire Partners
  • SRS
  • TPG
  • Apollo Capital Partners
  • Bain Capital
  • Hellman & Friedman
  • Centerbridge
  • Taconic
  • New Mountain Capital
  • Oak Hill
  • Anchorage
  • Bain Capital
  • Glenview Capital
  • Carlyle Group
  • Blackstone
  • Eton Park Capital Management
  • CCMP
  • Blackstone
  • DLJ Merchant Banking
  • Yale Law
  • Blackstone
  • Eton Park Capital Management
  • Cerberus
  • TPG
  • Silver Lake Partners
  • Silver Lake Partners
  • Mill Road
  • TPG
  • KKR
  • Westbrook Partners
  • Bridger Capital
  • Glenview Capital
  • Crestview Capital
  • Pershing Square Capital
  • KKR
  • Highbridge Capital
  • KKR
  • Blackstone
  • Canyon Capital
  • Bain Capital
  • Blackstone
  • Eton Park Capital
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Oakhill Capital
  • Anchorage Capital
  • Apax Partners
  • Taconic
  • Blackstone
  • Blackstone
  • Baupost Group
  • Anchorage Capital
  • Elliott Management
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • AEA Partners
  • Blackstone
  • Taconic
  • Apollo Capital Partners
  • Baupost Group
  • Blackstone
  • Fortress Investment Group
  • TPG-Axon Capital
  • Tiger Global
  • Blackstone
  • Angelo Gordon
  • Eton Park Capital
  • Blackstone
  • Och-Ziff Capital
  • Silver Lake Partners
  • Carlyle Group
  • Cerberus Capital
  • Blackstone
  • Madison Dearborn Partners
  • JP Morgan Capital Partners
  • Madison Dearborn Partners
  • Crestview

Blackstone London:

  • Citadel
  • Bain Capital
  • Blackstone
  • Blackstone
  • Goldman Sachs Special Situations
  • Blackstone
  • Citadel
  • Permira
  • Apax Partners
  • Blackstone
  • King Street
  • Advent International
  • Mount Kellett
  • Citadel
  • Apax Partners
  • Goldman Sachs Special Situations
  • Strategic Value Partners
  • Carlyle Group
  • Bain Capital
  • King Street
  • Silver Lake Partners

PJT New York:

  • Warburg Pincus
  • Berkshire Partners
  • Harvest Partners
  • Berkshire Partners
  • Spectrum Equity
  • Madison Dearborn Partners
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • King Street
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Hound Partners
  • York Capital Management
  • Darsana
  • Apollo Capital Management
  • Blackstone
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Hellman & Friedman
  • Silver Point
  • Governor's Lane
  • Oaktree Capital Management
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Maverick
  • Baupost Group
  • Baupost Group
  • Apollo Capital Management
  • General Atlantic

PJT London:

  • Centerbridge Partners
  • Blue Water Energy
  • HSBC Principal Investment
  • RiverRock European Capital Partners
  • Farallon Capital Management
  • Oak Hill

My understanding is that few people have had complete exit for London class, will update if have additional info.

 

This is for both RX and M&A.

BX and consequently PJT have a habit of keeping track of where their analysts and associates end up because most tend to do very well, going to large funds and as a result, becoming a client.

This is a list from BX and PJT so I don't have this kind of extensive info on other firms.

 

looked up most of the folks with the insane exits, seems like the top ones that make you go "wow" are really the RSSG (RX) folks from PJT, which everyone has said didn't have any drop w.r.t exit opps post spinoff. Does look like M&A is having a bit of a decline in quality.

 

Considering that the majority of the buyside exits for the RX group are distressed funds, it's not surprising.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
 

IBD analysts pulling off an exit to a respectable buy-side firm is hard enough simply because of supply and demand.

M&A definitely is not on the level of RSSG but still the fact that with the small class size, most of them still manage to land an excellent gig afterwards, is still impressive. Show me a bank with that kind of exits for almost everyone, every single year.

 
Best Response

Most replies seem to have missed the real heart of the legacy BX M&A value proposition.

'Pound for pound' it was one of the best banking gigs you could get. Hours were very attractive (80 was uncommon), pay was well above street, dealflow was varied and interesting (and you always had closed transactions by recruiting season), and placement was effectively guaranteed.

If you wanted Apollo or KKR you had to be proactive about it, but that goes for any analyst from any group and you sure as hell got the interview, which is more than I can say for other groups, even 'elite'.

If you were comfortable following the easy footsteps of the guys 2-3 years ahead of you who were analysts when you summered and were now at [insert well-performing MM PE shop here: Berkshire, et al.] and pulled (not pushed) you through recruiting comfortably, you could just glide.

The group took 7-8 each year. It was an intimate culture and about as favorable an analyst experience as could exist. Really, each time I see people on here talk about it's 'inferiority' relative to the legacy R&R group, I can't help but chuckle.

R&R was dramatically less of a lifestyle group. The strongest of each summer class routinely found themselves running a process literally on their own by the end of the program. The mentality was 'get the smartest kids, step aside to let them do the work, and be available to provide pointers when necessary'.

There were a lot of the M&T or Vagelos or Huntsman or vanilla Wharton but in three years type kids. Basically the workhorses who had no problem sitting in a chair for 16 hours straight or more. These are the kids who places like Silver Point, Bridger, Eton Park, etc. want and who are comfortable hardwiring their brain into the type of work you do there for 80+ a week.

What I'm trying to say is that if you were in either group, you could interview for whatever role you wanted. The 'worst' kids in relative terms still got very, very strong placements. The knock against M&A doesn't hold water: the kids who wanted HF offers went out and got them (e.g. a friend to Anchorage). Likewise for the stereotype that R&R placed 'better' to HFs: (e.g. friends who went to FFL and Centerbridge).

For either group, it was up to the individual.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 
APAE:
Most replies seem to have missed the real heart of the legacy BX M&A value proposition.

'Pound for pound' it was one of the best banking gigs you could get. Hours were very attractive (80 was uncommon), pay was well above street, dealflow was varied and interesting (and you always had closed transactions by recruiting season), and placement was effectively guaranteed.

If you wanted Apollo or KKR you had to be proactive about it, but that goes for any analyst from any group and you sure as hell got the interview, which is more than I can say for other groups, even 'elite'.

If you were comfortable following the easy footsteps of the guys 2-3 years ahead of you who were analysts when you summered and were now at [insert well-performing MM PE shop here: Berkshire, et al.] and pulled (not pushed) you through recruiting comfortably, you could just glide.

The group took 7-8 each year. It was an intimate culture and about as favorable an analyst experience as could exist. Really, each time I see people on here talk about it's 'inferiority' relative to the legacy R&R group, I can't help but chuckle.

R&R was dramatically less of a lifestyle group. The strongest of each summer class routinely found themselves running a process literally on their own by the end of the program. The mentality was 'get the smartest kids, step aside to let them do the work, and be available to provide pointers when necessary'.

There were a lot of the M&T or Vagelos or Huntsman or vanilla Wharton but in three years type kids. Basically the workhorses who had no problem sitting in a chair for 16 hours straight or more. These are the kids who places like Silver Point, Bridger, Eton Park, etc. want and who are comfortable hardwiring their brain into the type of work you do there for 80+ a week.

What I'm trying to say is that if you were in either group, you could interview for whatever role you wanted. The 'worst' kids in relative terms still got very, very strong placements. The knock against M&A doesn't hold water: the kids who wanted HF offers went out and got them (e.g. a friend to Anchorage). Likewise for the stereotype that R&R placed 'better' to HFs: (e.g. friends who went to FFL and Centerbridge).

For either group, it was up to the individual.

The M&T and Huntsman kids were absolute BEASTS. Pound for pound, they are as good as the top kids from Harvard/Stanford/MIT. So much respect for them.

 

It remains to be seen definitively.

RSSG seems to be largely unchanged: no major dilution in the talent pool, same caliber and count of mandates (couldn't get much higher, the group always worked on a lot and on most of the best), same or similar analyst experience, and no drop-off in placements.

CJ Brown (used to be one of three guys running the group up until June this year) was both thoughtful and brilliant. I'm sure Paul was smart enough to leave well enough be and not try to change a formula that clearly worked so magnificently. Since his departure I have no idea who's at the top, but my point is that it seems there's some continuity in product.

M&A seems to have slightly lower fidelity to the previous model on each of the dimensions I mentioned: caliber of analyst talent pool, mandate count (dramatically higher) and caliber (wider spread), analyst experience, and placements.

The old M&A group took 7-8 a year. I'm not joking when I say that it was like clockwork: 4-5 from Wharton (usually one of the guys from Beta) and 2 from Harvard (frequently a Spee guy) along with 1 (occasionally 2 in the same year) from [UVA / Dartmouth / NYU / Duke / Michigan / the like]. Now there is a way broader spread of schools.

In no way am I saying that this is a bad thing, simply making the observation. Blackstone prided itself on its loftiness. That seems to have dissipated with PJT. I see a lot more state school or top-50 school kids getting in the door.

It actually makes sense if you think Paul is trying to build a really big franchise. This is how the bulge brackets did it. You want people in your firm from a broad array of regions, schools, and backgrounds because it means you can put a team in front of any client who the client will grok with. Corn-fed Midwestern boy who played football at Indiana and is now the CEO of an $800m manufacturing company? Great, stick all the Big-10 guys you have into the pitch meeting. Boston Brahmin running a big asset manager considering a sale to AMG? Dope, show him all the Choate to Harvard or Andover to Yale guys you have.

On dealflow, similar observations. If you want to be a volume player, you need to be able to show creds across the full deal spectrum: both M&A and financing from the lower middle market all the way to the megacap.

Well, to do that you need to pipeline a lot of deals. Blackstone M&A in its final decade existed primarily because Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson started the firm in 1978 as an M&A boutique and keeping the original cornerstone in place felt good. It wasn't aggressive about pursuing business. There was a sweet spot and whatever fell into it, cool. The only reason the three advisory groups (people always forget about Park Hill) got siloed off was because the financial advisory revenue grew so insignificant relative to the investment management revenue and was beginning to interfere with the firm's ability to get into some processes. Some sellers did not want to let GSO or Capital into a process if R&R was the advisor.

So, free of that, if Paul wants to swing for the fences (and trust, he does), he's cranking all the dials to 11 and now there's a wider range of acceptable deals.

So for analyst exits, the simple fact that the class size is no longer 8 and as homogeneous as it used to be means that the network is no longer as self-reinforcing (more bodies to place) and there will be higher variability in outcomes due to higher variability in talent and performance.

Whether this is a 10% or 30% or 50% diluting effect is yet to be seen. I think the next 3-5 years will be helpful in proving it out. You want to see how it goes when the current first-years overseeing brand new summer analysts are themselves people who were summers underneath first-years recruited into PJT, not the legacy BX M&A. From simple math, we probably hit that in calendar 2021. Class of 2020 analysts were summers underneath class of 2018 (who were interviewed by PJT analyst hires) and manage the summer interns who graduate in 2022.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

After glancing at this list again, I can see several placements missing (four unique funds). I'm leaning towards not naming them because they are one-of-one placements, meaning if I wrote them I would effectively be directing attention to a single person's LinkedIn.

I guess this is to say please note that the list the OP shared is incomplete and I can confirm that personally.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

They do still run lean, a bit of expansion but not as fast as dealflow has expanded (analyst class is still ~12/14 per year. I guess they're a whale hunter of sorts although in my mind that more applies to firms like Allen Co or other boutiques that lock up a couple marquee deals per year. PJT does have a higher avg deal value (and the highest per analyst by far) but since they were 10th in M&A tables last year there was a combination of value/volume. For instance they did basically every major transaction in the REGL space last year, several major biopharma deals, a couple big fig deals etc. Certainly in an interesting spot, we'll see if they can continue this trajectory in 2020.

 

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