Q&A - MF PE Analyst Leaving

Hi guys,

Not a lot and I know this has been discussed to death, but trying to give back as much as I can. Please let me know of anything you want to know! 

For context, I did the whole classic Target > IBD SA > MF PE. Now I'm leaving to a HF 

Understandable if no one gives a s* haha, but in case any college guys / interns have any Qs fire away!

 

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32 Comments
 

Type of HF? Was your analyst stint incremental in learning how to invest etc or just useful to build a technical base?

Joining one of the MMHF grad schemes next year but curious how that experience compares to starting in PE out of school for a career in publics.

 

HF - Activist (Elliott, Starboard, ValueAct)

Technical base for sure yes, learning how to invest - yes, but to a lesser extent. It definitely taught me a lot and showed me to what extent things are diligence-able, what kind of things to look out for ("what would public markets react to") - we always did rel val with public securities to make sure what we bought was worth it privatised. Unfortunately though, you learn far more about process / stakeholders involved for better/worse and a lot about your existing PortCo's, which can sometimes just be super administrative. So a mixed bag, but very grateful for the learnings I recieved

 

The biggest finance hardo at my school chose p72 over BX. Think MMHF have hit an inflection point in terms of public investing at least

 

Yeah a few years ago that probably wouldn’t have been the case. Hell people would take too IBD over P72 and the like, even for a career in publics. Doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever cared or based a decision on what other people have done, don’t think it’s a good barometer for program quality personally.

i am curious what the PE analyst programs are though, and how PE out of school differs from HF out of school, even though I have 0 interest in anything outside the shop I signed with. 

 

Interview Qs mainly around my deal experience. We had a "landmark" deal that was celebrated in the media quite a lot in 2023 so that was extensively debated by almost everyone I interviewed with. Process was very similar to OC that my friends did - but I was inmailed 1 year after spending time at my PE shop - lots of interviews with juniors, 1 mini math test + lots of psychometric ones and then seniors / multiple PMs 

Funnily it was my first and only process with HFs so cannot share anything more generally

 

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