Picking between Developmental Private Equity (?) and Business Development at Real Estate Company- Pre-MBA

Long time lurker here, first time posting. I have two job offers that I'm genuinely conflicted between. A little background info about me:

  • Graduated McGill Econ/Poli Sci in 2014.

  • 2 years as an Investment Banking Analyst at a boutique (MENA region)- 1 closed 100M USD transaction, lots of smaller transactions.

  • Things started getting boring, deals just weren't happening and I felt useless/hopeless. Quit 3 months ago.

  • Started a small fund about a month and a half ago ( commitments of 100K, collected 20K, invested ~10k), but I want something full-time obviously. So I'm making sure the fund is in auto-pilot mode before I start my new role. Now I just need to update my files, update my excels, and look out for opportunities, so not as much number crunching as the past couple of months have been (15 hours days, 7 days a week).

  • I want to go business school in 2-4 years' time (HBS, Wharton, LBS, the usual suspects). I'd like to join a grade A PE firm after that, before doing something on my own (Will keep the fund running and plan to keep tweaking and improving my models and strategies).

Now, I'm not sure which of these two positions will help prepare me and "my story" for the top MBA programs and would like your input:

A) Associate position at a firm that basically builds projects/companies in partnership with the government and/or private investors. They've built and currently operate a university,a 500 MW solar energy farm, a 100 MW wind farm, and a specialized unit for a hospital. Now, here's the thing; they don't operate under the typical AUM structure where they enlist LPs and go hunting for deals, buying out existing companies. Instead, they identify interesting "green-field" opportunities mostly in Clean Energy, education, and healthcare, and then they proceed to arrange the financing, establish the company, build the project, operate it, and then exit after several years. Really interesting, but my concern is they're relatively new (est. 2011, no exits yet)- I don't know what to make of it.

B) Business Development at a huge real estate development firm in its pre-IPO stage. They're revamping their business development group in preparation for the IPO and are looking for someone with a finance background to help optimize everything from workflow to data-gathering and research. My concern is that it's just a cushy job(?)

Looking for the opinions of the similarly ambitious men and women of the WSO community.

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