European languages for London PE?
Previous forums mention that knowing a second (European) language is needed to enter into PE in London. To what extent is this still true? And how difficult is it to break in if English is your only language?
Depends on fund size and whether continental coverage is done from London or the countries
The answer here is much more complicated than it would seem. As the above poster mentioned, a big part of it depends on whether they are covering mainland Europe. If the fund invests across the continent, expect them to place a value on European languages, especially if you are expected to make investments in the region. And the language requirement is quite high -- there is a big preference for native speakers who are familiar with the geography. Being 'fluent' may not cut it -- you need to be able to conduct business pretty effortlessly in the language. If you're missing critical things in due diligence because of language, that is a problem.
Noting this, there are plenty of PE firms in London that invest specifically in the UK. They tend to be smaller funds and employ mostly UK-educated folks, with the occasional American, Canadian, or European sneaking in (I'm including all of Ireland in the UK-educated category -- I know this is technically incorrect). If you don't speak a second language you'll have more success at these UK-centric firms than at the pan-european ones.
If you're still confused, pull up the websites of the PE firms you're interested in and take a look at the investment professionals' biographies.
My point was more that some funds cover the continent from the London office, in which case there is often a language requirement. Other funds have a main London hub and then country coverage local, in which case there is usually limited benefit speaking a different language when applying to the London office
Don’t think it’s too important. Either your fund is big enough to have local offices, particularly in GSA and the French speaking part - or they hire natives. Seems to me that even most big funds tend to cover Nordics from LDN, so guess would be a plus to speak one of the languages there.
Either you are native speaker or unlikely that your language skills will be considered to be fair. Only exception is if you have lived somewhere for a while - say in France - and are now completely fluent.
Language skills clearly help but we still hire people who only speak English.
Our EU focused funds have native speakers and industry specialists covering each region.
That doesn't mean you must speak another language, but there is also no lack of English speakers in the UK. So, if you are native or very fluent in a language, it can be quite helpful.
Helpful but not a must. We have at least 40% of the team that doesn’t speak a second European language at my London-HQed firm. That beinf said, depending on the year/firm needs, we might be hiring folks with specific language skills. To give you an example, while you can do business easily in the Nordics or Benelux without knowing local languages, we almost always need native French speakers or Spanish speakers for coverage of those 2 geographies.
40% diveristy hires at Hg. Really cute. Hg is the epitome of European wokeness.
That is the case at most large PE firms. Embarrassing that an industry built on merit and competence was changed by this wokeness movement within one decade…
...
Got approached by a few MFs solely because I speak German (HHs acknowledged my EB is otherwise non-target)
PJT London office is non-target for MF PE recruiting?
Yep, also for UMM
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