General Atlantic Updates
Any updates on GA with on cycle chats / networking ramping up? Seems like their AUM has ballooned over last few years and that they’ve raised more capital over the last few years than WP, H&F, CD&R and a number of MFs, but not often talked about here besides the Associate scandal lol.
Curious to hear about culture by group, hours, and relative positioning vs other large funds for certain exit opps (hedge fund, corp dev, VC, B School placement, etc).
Aren't they investing a $8bn flagship fund vs. some of the people you mentioned investing >$20bn funds? They have acquired some other funds and raised some alternative strategies, but assuming they are more successful at fundraising of CD&R and H&F is wrong.
In general, not really a great comparison to lump GA with those funds as GA is primarily growth equity and are only recently getting a taste for buyouts. In terms of growth equity, think it’s probably the top spot.
How’s their healthcare arm?
At one of direct competitors (TA/Insight/Summit):
Tech: historically had some great/well known investments but they overpaid for some assets over the last few years / have had some misses. But to be fair, who in tech investing didn’t. Still a great group to join and one of the pioneers of tech growth investing. Tough hours.
Consumer: not the best group but heard culture is much better
Fin Services: no idea
HC: top group at GA and one of the best HC investment teams on the street. have had killer exits last few years. Tough hours.
don’t know about performance/culture for Asia/EMEA/LatAm. Lot of growth funds (including fund i am at, along with GA) have started playing in larger deals so lines between these large cap growth funds and MFPE are starting to get a bit blurred.
Stupid question, but why the variance in hours? A culture thing or just more inbound deals to look at? Surely if the later they would hire more people or let them go from weaker groups?
Also, what hours are we talking? 50-70?
The groups at GA all operate independently. There’s one group head partner that runs a group. This also means that person sort of sets the tone on types of deals they look at. I have had a few friends work there in different groups.
GA Tech is a true growth equity investor and portfolio mix is heavily slanted to traditional Series C+ growth deals. They do a few buyouts but few and far between. It’s the largest team by headcount so now that the venture market is slowing I’ve heard that there’s a lot of infighting by the mid-levels creating a tough culture. W/L balance in this group seems to be OK not bad but not great. When things are slow you are working 9-5 but when things are fast it’s late nights.
GA Consumer is a joke. I would be surprised if it continues to exist in 5 years unless they pull a home run on something. Look at how poorly EWCZ has done since IPO. They also lost a ton of money on Forma Brands. One of the investments was a version of farming where the end product costs more than the existing process… I think ABG is carrying the group at the moment. B/c their track record is so bad they don’t do many deals so W/L balance is decent.
LatAm is a pretty good group. Culturally, I’ve heard great things and the head of LatAm is also kind of the 2nd in line head of the firm. They previously had homeruns but the companies have traded poorly in public markets - DLO / XP. However, the group head has a great reputation in LatAm and used to work w/ the 3G guys in the GP Investments days in Brazil.
GA LS - newer group so track record unclear. Their beat deal is RPRX but the HC group did that deal before the LS group was formed and the partner was hired. Know the least about this group.
GA HC - basically a MM PE group. The last three or four exits have been incredible (like ~5-30x). However, the current portfolio seems to have the same issues as many VC portfolios created during COVID. Lot of those deals were expensive so unclear how those will work out. Also worth noting that in all four of those deals the exit was to a strategic which will overpay for high quality assets. If the M&A environment changes such that payors can’t buy stuff anymore b/c of anti-trust then I wonder how well the HC portfolio will end up.
GA FinTech - seems to be the best group from a culture, w/l balance, and performance perspective. HC performance might be better on a slugging % but FinTech does more volume at a high batting average.
GA Buyouts - group is kind of a joke. It’s basically a PE CoInvestment arm. They will do like small checks in TB deals. It’s by far the newest group so don’t have a ton of info on culture or w/l but I know someone who interviewed and it just seems like not a real PE job.
Those direct competitors have strong histories as healthcare investors. Familiar with Summit.
Nowdays, it also seems like Oak HC / FT is a huge player in this space. Also General Catalyst (even though this is more of a VC fund, they do some large deals like Accolade last week).
Any thoughts on their analyst program?
What associate scandal?
This chick went absolutely batshit on LinkedIn and went on a multi-post rant accusing all the partners of various -isms for not giving her partner-level carry economics and compensation when she was one of the first juniors on their public equities team or something along those lines. Being one of the only juniors on the team clearly went to her head (as you'll see in the article) and she subsequently claimed that anyone with integrity leaves the industry (implying everyone who stays in it has none). She was promptly blackballed for her behavior and now works at some market research firm. God willing no one will ever have the misfortune of hearing from her again.
Her IG was pretty lit for a bit, a mix of unhinged takes, thirst trap photos, and validation seeking behavior
Is the public equities team still active at GA?
How is their climate team? They made a big splash when it was introduced but since then have heard nothing
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