IB to FoF to PE?

I recently left my senior analyst IB role at a BB to work in a FoF at a very large SWF

I was at first excited about the change in lifestyle / work, but the last few months have been really slow and definitely not the level of diligence / intensity that I thought it would be; feel that I am not learning much here. I am now trying to see what opportunities exist in direct PE at this stage of my career.

What do people think is the best path forward? My seat is very co-invest / secondaries heavy so that could help with a move to direct PE. I also am so recently removed from my IB role that it could also carry some weight in a direct PE move. But I also realize the reality that GPs are not looking at people with my profile at this point. 

Does it make sense to consider going back to IB and then go to direct PE? 

2 Comments
 

Are you at a swf that has a direct PE division? Could maybe try and speak to that team and see when they recruit / see if you could transfer internally.

Otherwise yeah it’s a tough sell to take a secondaries guy for a direct PE role. Could probably grind off-cycle for MM/LMM buyout roles but could take a while. If you accentuate the co-invest stuff vs secondaries it may help too, assuming you do some level of diligence on the co-invests that you could talk up

 

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