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Thanks for clarifying, I almost got confused when you said Big 4 and thought you were talking about Grant Thornton or BDO.
Haha my bad - thanks
Candidly there will probably have to be one more step here. I have (rarely) seen transaction advisory services move to PE. When it has, it has definitely been for much smaller, regional PE firms. That being said, an analyst at my ex bank came from BVal and left for a mega fund less than a year after.
Thanks for advice - in terms of that extra step; what do you think that would look like? Potentially move to IB before? Or go back office/valuation role at a PE and then look for movement into the front office?
Moving from bval to front office in PE would probably be equally as difficult. I would definitely advise taking the IB route if PE is what you really want to do.
I know a few people who did bval to back office PE roles doing valuation of portfolio companies. I do have a friend who did big4 bval to a boutique front office PE role, however it took him literally 6 months of interviewing just for a tiny shop.
It's incredibly rare.
Competition is already so fierce for PE associate positions, not sure why I would take a bet on a Big 4 valuation analyst vs an IB analyst. Sorry but unless you’re really lucky, you’ll probably have to do IB first.
Think you would really have to go towards the low end of the middle market in a tier 2-3 city
As others have mentioned, I've only seen it done with IB as a stepping stone in the middle
Same thoughts as others. You need some type of transaction experience. BV is only tangentially related to PE. You would have a massive skills gap without IB, or at least TAS.
You have to go PE first... know of a couple cases where people made the leap but it was never directly from BVal.
The modeling and experience in BVal is functionally not transferable.
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