What's the Deal with Blackstone Tac Opps?

Hey All,


I'm beginning to panic.


I came from a top target and then a top BB (think GS / MS / JPM) to Blackstone Tac Opps last summer. During on cycle, I was told that I was mainly going to be focused on buyouts, with a little bit of cross-capital structure investing. I'm approaching my second year in the group and so far I have been mainly in non-convertible preferred deals that never close. Was originally thinking that this might be a function of the markets but all my colleagues in buyout have been looking at tons of full-control opportunities. In response to this, I've been trying to recruit for other positions but it seems like the only funds that will even consider my candidacy are top credit shops. I was able to land one interview at a L/S hedge fund and they really liked me. However, they were under the impression I was in classic buyout and given my deal experience, they mentioned that they would only be able to extend me a role with the credit investing PM. 


Any advice would be great-- really getting worried here and very tired of going exclusively to credit committee. I did not sign up for a GSO experience! For context, I got an offer to return to banking as an AN3 in my old group or they will give me a year of credit to be an Associate in the direct lending group. What should I do?

 

I’m an incoming analyst out of a top target into the group and am really focused on the credit investing side of things. Was under the impression that’s what the group did? Have already started speaking to OakTree and SixthStreet ahead of oncycle in the fall

 

Former BX tac opps guy here. When I was there in 2014 we did lots of buyout in really cool industries but now that Blitzer made his money he saves all that for his personal investing (see his investments in 76ers, Devils, etc.) and lets his group focus on everything else. Think that now they mainly focus on credit investing but they are still a top group if that is what you're interested in.

 

The thing is I came in and was looking forward to getting some credit exposure since I think that makes you more nuanced as an investor. But not ALL credit! Everyday all I do is a daily update (corporate bond spreads, SOFR movement, manual pulls from 8-Ks of new debt offerings, etc.), capital structure benchmarking, and reviewing the buyout team's memos to see if we can provide direct lending. And before you say this is because I'm a bad Associate, this isn't an isolated thing-- this is every person in the group. We have absolutely nothing real in the pipeline and we're just spinning our wheels to find work. Sometimes they even make me manually mark up and redline NDAs since we don't get the resources of the buyout team.

 
protectyaneck12

Sometimes they even make me manually mark up and redline NDAs since we don't get the resources of the buyout team.

From Top BB to paralegal. Ouch.

 
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