BDT
Any insight on BDT WLB/ comp / assoc experience?
Interested in learning more about them but not a lot out there
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I know the firm keeps their cards close to their chest and haven’t been able to find too much on them. Privacy seems to be a big deal for them.
From what I’ve heard, they do a lot of work with Warren Buffet relating to his personal investing (as well as other UHNW individuals), and they like to service family-owned businesses. I’ve also heard they have a strong culture and appreciate more “conventional” values. From other threads, they don’t take too many junior interns and target Harvard/UChicago. Take what I say w a grain of salt because it’s been almost a year since I chatted with someone who was familiar with the firm.
Everyone in Texas hates them because they bought out Whataburger and started expanding nationally.
BUMP
Interviewed there recently. Nice people, very unstructured process. They do three jobs basically so M&A advisory for family owned businesses, principal investing (with a heavy tilt towards a growth style) and family office consulting so e.g. you get sent to go help a UNHW family that recently sold a business to set up their family office. IRR they are aiming for is lower than a typical fund and they don’t always look for control. Investments are heavily structured. It’s also largely relationship driven, their LPs and advisory clients provide the investment opportunities and they have a big focus on allowing families to keep their legacy (in order to generate dealflow). There’s been a bit of a drift away from purely focusing on families, now they’ll be open to looking at any situation with what they call a “reference shareholder”. Experience and skill set you gain there is probably closer to old-style banking than a modern pure play PE shop. Phenomenal WLB, great comp and very very nice people.
Thanks, very helpful. Would you mind sharing ball park range for comp and WLB detail? Just want to get a feel.
Can you say more on the WLB front? Have seen several threads saying they're pretty sweaty
Bump
Can you provide insight to AS1 comp?
No personal knowledge, but FWIW the Litquidity comp survey put Aso1 at 185k all in. No clue how accurate that is.
Any other context on phenomenal work / life balance? Is there face time and / or open to people working from home?
anyone have context to the actual interviews themselves? seem like they could touch everything from markets to paper LBO.
BDT is short for Bussy Driven Trading, I've been told from a reliable source
Have they begun interviews?
Can't comment on comp, but I agree with the above poster that it's likely more of a banking and advisory heavy role than it is PE. It's not a bad thing if you're ok with that, but from what I've heard, it's really not 50% banking and 50% PE as some people like to think it is. I've heard it's closer to 75% banking and advisory and the occasional deal work as needed.
Pros are that you get a varied experience, cons are that you don't really get good at either. You're not really doing that much PE deal work and the advisory work you do is very much tailored to the families and businesses you work with, so if you really wanted to be an expert banker/advisor, you'd be better off at a BB/EB.
Hear the culture is pretty good though and in Chicago, so your dollar will go far. BDT has a strong reputation in Chicago, but is relatively unknown outside. Byron Trott has a great reputation though.
I think if you're coming from a Chicago MM bank and don't mind being in Chicago longer term, it's a pretty good option. If you're coming from a BB/EB and are seeing it as some awesome hybrid role at a big fund where you get to do MF style deals and advise at the same time, it's probably less sexy than that. All-in-all, a great option, but just know what you're getting yourself into.
Thanks for sharing.
From what I've heard from friends who work there, it's not always necessary 50% / 50%, but also not 75% / 25%. It obviously varies depending on what is in the pipeline so far. They're raising a $13B fund this year, so someone has to deploy this capital. I don't think they've ever hired from a Chicago MM and have offices in NY as well
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