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Yeah a lot of silent layoffs / firms cutting of progression. I guess this is the outcome of 2021-2022 deal boom. I thought about going back to banking. Easier job, more cash comp and more visibility intro promotions
See “Buyout Bubble Popping” thread….
yes it’s industry wide. There’s a lot more stealth layoffs going on across UMM/MF - ie no seat, you have 6 months to find a job kind of deal
the silver lining is recruiters and other funds will no longer bat an eye at layoffs because it’s happening everywhere - there’s no performance connotation (what does “performance” even really mean when you’re not the actual person deciding to take the risk / invest the capital)
Strongly suggest growing asset classes that value the IB/PE skill set … eg private credit assuming you want to remain an investor (if not then corporate, B school, search funds are all options)
This is helpful. I agree HH can’t give a bad look for performance if several people from the same firms are getting cut unexpectedly.
What does the recruitment environment look like? Does anyone know? I think its going to take some time to find a job in this market…
Not going to sugar-coat it to be as helpful as possible and obviously anecdotal data-points but:
So what does this mean for anyone looking for a gig? Someone had a really good post but basically (full credit to person who originally wrote this) -
1. If you have a seat that you can live with - stay
2. If you have a seat but you can see the writing on the wall - recruit immediately - easier to find a job with a job all things equal
3. If you don't have a job - market not likely to get better in the near-term, so really the best option is likely to expand your pool of opportunities to adjacent categories
4. Business school is best option to explore for 1st/2nd year associates because that's a baked-in 24-month call option to wait out the storm and maximize all optionality while protecting downside (no one is going to bat an eye if you spent two years at HSW)
1. Problem is not interest rates - that’s just catalyst not root cause
2. Root cause is LPs decreasing allocation to PE because there’s an increasing suspicion marked IRRs are - well let’s call it “less than accurate” (how many stealth 0s are in your all guys portfolios?)
3. Fund sizes are decreasing 25-50% at many well known UMM investors - MFs are slightly more shielded because they just vacuum AUM (still down just less) and can move people around to other funds internally a bit
4. When you have a portco that loses 25-50% of EBITDA what happens? In the current scenario - we are all the “variable cost” and the shareholder is the managing partner (who wants to keep as much management fees as possible)
5. Hazard a rough guess that this industry will downsize/attrit 25-30% of headcount over next 3-5 years - it’ll be a slow bleed with some one off big cuts (like Carlyle taking out the entire consumer team)
6. Don’t put your head in the sand - you know how the portfolio is doing. If the portfolio is in trouble the next fundraiser is going to decline. Best seats right now are brand new associates and very tenured partners - worst seats are anyone looking to be promoted in next 12-24 months
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