How hard is it to switch from private capital advisory to pure M&A execution?
Assuming I’m an AN2/3 at a MM (HW / Blair / Lincoln type) private capital (secondaries) group, how hard would it be for me to recruit into classic M&A? I just took the only offer I had at hand when I was recruiting and now I’m afraid of being locked out.
I think it will be very hard, but I hope others can give different perspectives.
I work in a standard industry coverage team, and in over 10 years I have never seen a CV from someone in Secondaries (to give context, whenever we advertise for a lateral hire for say, an AN1 or AN2, HR receive all the applications and screen them, then send a shortlist of maybe 20 - 30 to the staffer, who will review them (maybe with others in the team) and select ~10 for interviews); in a recent recruitment for that level in the last 12 months, we had over 300 applications, and all of the 30 shortlisted were classical IBD sector coverage, of which maybe half to two thirds were fully employed.
I'm by no means saying it isn't possible - the above might be to do with my bank or team. Perhaps you'd have more luck at smaller banks or in a better market, but I wanted to give at least one data point.
Thank you - I really appreciate this. Not what I wanted to hear, but it’s what I suspected. Do you have any advice? My team mostly does GP-leds, so I thought I might have an angle. And I thought a foot in the door was better than nothing
I'm afraid I don't have any silver bullets if your only goal is to move to IB.
As advice, firstly make sure at least that IB is actually what you really want to do. If it is, fine, but if you're not sure don't waste years of your life re-applying, re-studying, etc.
You can try networking but honestly I think this will be extremely tough. You might get lucky with smaller banks but at larger places there are so many candidates with direct experience in IB that you may find it challenging to stand out.
Options I suppose are (A) go back to university for a Masters or MBA and hope for the best, (B) re-recruit maybe for Big 4 Audit / TS and try to enter the industry that way (which is also very competitive these days and not easy), or (C) stick it out in Secondaries and hope we have a 2021 market again where there might be more lateral recruitment ability.
Lockwood pointed this out but for sure if you can rotate internally somehow then that should be your #1 route.
Going to be tough without taking a step down in brand.
Would suggest you try to move internally or otherwise you need to network hard.
Understood. Thanks for the perspective
I was in a PCA team and I know several of the analysts transitioned to M&A after a year. I got IB coverage offers but would’ve had to step back a year. At the time I was an associate with no desire to step back to analyst. So my advice would be to look for that move well in advance of nearing associate so that it doesn’t feel like as much of a hit.
You just need to make the narrative that the process that you run in PCA is an M&A process and that you’ve learned modeling (either on your own or from single asset contribution funds)
Okay, that’s very helpful as well - thanks! This is what I thought the answer would be before asking, but the other comments provide perspective as well.
If I waited till say, AS2, do you then think I would have to be an AN again, or could I just do an “extra year” of being an AS. We mainly do GP led deals, where most of them are actually CVs, so it’s not a stretch to provide the narrative you’re referring to
EDIT: CVs = Continuation funds (both single and multi-asset)
Name checks out for someone in PCA
Calm down. I thought you were busy circle jerking off your boys to a “golden age of private credit” headline from last year
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