1st Year MM Buy-Side Analyst - Ask me anything
This forum has helped me tremendously the last 4-5 years so wanted to give back and provide a Q&A for the community. Background: Attend a public semi-target think UNC Chapel Hill/UT- Austin/Indiana/Michigan/UVA with a ~3.5-3.6 GPA and am going full-time to a private investment firm in a core, but non-NY city (think Boston, San Francisco, Houston) on the investment team underwriting senior, uni, mezzanine, and equity deals, had a few banking offers but chose to skip IB knowing I wanted to do buy-side anyway Previously interned at the same private investment firm my junior summer, a PE shop my soph summer and an ER boutique my freshman summer doing remote work
Yeah of course, just like any other PE or debt firm we’re primarily looking for companies that are generating recurring revenue and have a strong defensible position in the marketplace, strong value proposition, low capex, favorable regulatory environments for the particular industry (industry tailwinds), however since we are credit focused investors for the deals we don’t invest equity we don’t see a penny of the growth profile so we want to maximize the potential of getting our principal + interest, thus we’re looking at recession resistant companies, with a strong cash flow profile, low maintenance capex in comparison to growth capex, managemt teams that have been through previous credit cycles, sufficient FCCR with a cushion, etc
I would describe my firm as a direct lending and mezz shop as we invest throughout the whole cap structure senior, senior stretch, mezz, equity meaning we don’t invest in bonds or debentures or public equities, you can compare us to a Crescent Capital or a Brightwood Capital or a GSO Capital Partners