Was wondering how essential knowing a mainland European language (french, german etc) is for breaking into private equity firms in London? Obviously depends on fund etc, but lets say some of the large MF or even MM funds in London?
I've seen some cases of course of people knowing only english break in, but was wondering how disadvantaged one would be if they only knew english but was trying to break in to PE (assuming of course the typical IBD analyst background)?
Quite important. It'll give you a leg up and be very practical on both day-to-day and client interaction tasks. Having seen a few English only speakers go into PE is like seeing a few non-targets get into top BBs - possible, but you'll have a much harder road ahead. Plus, you won't be competing against bi and trilingual people with mediocre grades coming out of MMs. You'll be facing people with top grades, stellar technical skills coming from BBs, EBs and other top firms. Having more than 1 language distinguishes you from the pack.
Now, do you need to know 6 languages at C2 level? Clearly not. If you can know 2 useful European languages (e.g. French, Spanish, German or Italian) at a C1/B2 level, that is already quite something.
In what world do you invest in a European company and they speak Hindi?
As far as I know all teams that invest in India are not based out of London.