20 Comments
 

Anonymous Monkey:

OP here. Haven’t really enjoyed the move to buy side as much as I thought I would. All I ever heard was “PE IS PARADISE” the last few years but I miss the sellside quite a bit.


Kind of a soft answer but I can imagine the stress of ownership is arguably worse than staying up to rearrange rectangles. Unless you’re receiving economics PE doesn’t seem worth it anymore, IRR was double digits for decades due to macroeconomic conditions and cheap debt, now you’re actually trusting those above you to make the business better … easier said than done I would imagine

 
Funniest

Sell-side is classic sell shovels to money hungry PE funds, and let them carry the risks. Doesn't sound as bad when you factor that it pushes you to develop sale skills, either actively or by assimilation.

Think about the alternative of learning about businesses, accounting, and financial analysis/modeling that might be of no use if GPT 32.4 in some years does all of those, or the PortCo is failing and because you're so squeezed on IRR from the competition, you're seniors make your life hell in finding a way to save the company. 

So think long-term kids, and be a salesman. Who knows, you might also find your future wife by selling yourself.

incentives trumph ethics
 
Most Helpful

Can't emphasize this enough... left SS for the buyside and then switched over to fundraising (on an actual sales track) and it's what can't be replicated by AI... So many juniors, myself included, would clown sales guys and be all gung-ho about modeling but none of these deals get done via modeling, it's all about reading people and making them like you or your idea. Unless you're a PM at a HF or a senior PE guy, almost every aspect of finance is sales. Most executives are good at selling for C-Suite... an MD at a bank is a sales guy and so many people miss this. If you sell well in the role it's very expensive for a firm to get rid of you

 

We saw two waves of buyside to IB hires over the last 18 months. Usually lines up 3-4 months after an outsized number of AN 2's leave early or no AN to AS promotes decide to stay.

 

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