Chicago PE firms (comprehensive list and tiers)

Have never heard Chicago Pacific mentioned before, but I am aware of them.

Waud is a pretty big name. They’re obviously strong in healthcare, but I went to a few recruiting events with them. In addition to their office being a horrible purple theme, they seemed idk stiff and unpersonable to me. I’m pretty sure it’s Two and Out as well.

Waud is respectable, but the culture is toxic. Associates are focused on fewer portcos to cover, but are heavily involved with them, including lots of monotonous support activities.

Chicago Pacific doesn't know how to compete in processes and it's going to be harder and harder for them to grow fund size given that.

may river: not familiar first hand but i know of one person and have only heard good things about her. one associate is a friend two friends. i met him out one night and on a personal level (not familiar w/ work obvs.) he seemed cool.

new harbour: again not familiar first hand but i met one of the midlevels in a bar and he knew me from a mutual friend. seemed like a good dude. knew of an analyst who went there. he wasn’t in my group but he was chill. at booth now.

CIVC: work life balance seemed okay but i was told they have no culture (eg, dont talk at work about non work related, very dry and no camaraderie).

what about shops like waud, vistria, linden, cressey?

• Know several people who have described GTCR as something they regret. Both were people who came from EB’s and they said it was worse hours and treatment than banking.

Now that said, I have noticed a correlation with unhappiness and PE associates at prestigious funds anywhere. My friends that went the prestigious PE firm path generally expected improvements in lifestyle and quality of life and ended up with banking 2.0 for another few years, but this time with 3 disadvantages:

• 2 years older and 2 years more burned out—people start getting more introspective as they age and things like being single, having no work life balance, and not loving your job get more concerning at 26 versus 22
• Everyone rationalizes banking as 2 years with a prize at the end. PE isn’t like this. While some kick you out after 2 years for an MBA, most are up and out models where they want you to stay forever. This means if you find the job painful, there is no end or time period you are fighting to reach the end of, it’s just an abyss of long hours and brutal work. This can be defeating.
• The work relative to banking can be more stressful. Much of banking is more mindless process running, PE involves assumptions and people challenging your assumptions. This can be stressful because it is hard to hide and you always need to be on. Further, poor performance can result in ops work that many times is really futile because ultimately struggling portcos are investments that shouldn’t have happened. Dynamic of a portco doing poorly for an associate looks like the following:

1. Portco isn’t doing well, so seniors get angry and demand a fix
2. Associate is tasked with fixing some issue
3. Issue usually isn’t an easy fix and can come back to either things that seem simple to fix but aren’t, or are very costly and time intensive to resolve
4. Seniors get frustrated issue can’t be fixed or isn’t a simple fix and put pressure on associate. Associates explanations that the issue isn’t easy to resolve is met with pressure to work harder or they can be afraid to explain the issue can’t be fixed.
5. Associate tries to work with staff who resent the associate and/or are indifferent to the pressure to perform that the associate has
6. Associate works very diligently for little progress because the issue is structural and potentially the investment just shouldn’t have been made. Associate feels they have a thankless job where they achieve little, and are resented by the company staff they work with and by the seniors for not getting enough progress, and they are working all the time. It’s like pushing on a string or trying empty a flooding boat—there’s no end and you go nowhere.