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I can only speak to castlelake generally, but I would avoid.

It’s undergone a transition and is now marketing itself as an ‘asset based private credit’ shop. Thats fine if that’s what you want to do, but your investing is going to be focused on hard assets in one of real estate, specialty finance, or aviation. Again, fine if that’s what you’re interested in, but it is highly specialized and doesn’t have a ton of crossover to the corporate side.

The comp and opportunities to deploy capital are going to be hamstrung by the fact that returns have been pretty poor for the value funds. That said, the rebrand appears to be having some success and new capital is coming in the door. Comp will be low relative to street, but the work life balance is probably better than at your average private credit shop.

The recent acquisition by Brookfield will bring a lot of questions too as there will be a need to maximize fee related earnings at the GP level.

 

Exhibit 3189 of a special situations firm blowing up and finding Jesus through pivoting to a fee-generation shop. Agree you should be a bit careful.

 

Have a friend who works there. Can confirm comp at junior level is at / slightly above market

 

My firm has a joint venture with them. They’re incredibly demanding (e.g. my counterpart there blasts off emails from 1-4 AM all week, every week). The other issue is they’re extremely myopic. No-one can make a decision without 100% certainty of where every single dollar has gone/is going on new deals. As a high-yield lender, thats of course impossible... and is the very reason you’re able to charge higher spreads. From what I’ve seen, the company seems to operate with a fear-based culture. I would recommend avoiding

 

Would echo the above sentiments and avoid at all costs. Very tough and demanding culture for associates and VPs with no recognition or transparency from senior leadership about the lack of upward mobility opportunities.  

 

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