How many deals do you complete each year?
Have met some associates at a BX/TPG/Apollo/KKR firm say that they had all been there for 18 months and none of them had been on a closed deal. Is this common?
I’m specifically interested in tech growth/buyout but also broadly interested in hearing how many deals associates have closed in the last ~12 months across any vertical or group.
I’m in later stage VC and have closed 2 deals in the last 12 months.
bump also curious
One deal every 2 years sounds about right. Could be a bit more or less dependent on deployment strategy and staffing luck
Agree with this for regular way LBO / growth-leaning buyout. Earlier stage growth tends to have higher velocity but obviously not a lot of activity in this market nowadays. I’m at a more flexible large cap fund (WP/Advent/GA) and just hit the 2-year mark and did my first deal (though part of this was driven by how slow markets were in 22/23)
As other posts have noted, closed deals isn’t really a great metric to base experience on in PE, but for better or worse, closed deal experience is still weighted more heavily in lateral recruiting
About 0.3-0.5
you should focus on live deal experience in buyout. Experience is more or less the same if you get to final LOI. You should have 3-4 of those during 2 yr stint.
I agree with the deal execution portion , but I'd like to challenge you on the post-execution part. You miss out on considerable amount of experience if you end up not doing the deal (i.e. actively tracking the business - performance, market, peers - and understanding hits/flaws in your original underwrite). I agree for recruiting it's not that important, but for your overall development as an investor it's pretty crucial to learn from prior underwrites
Yeah true but you can get a lot of that from taking a portco over from associates rolling off
These last 2 years have been really bad for funds accumulation of dry powder. There simply isn't enough PE activity, so makes sense as to why a lot of associates haven't closed any deals at the larger funds.
There isn’t a lot going on in tech growth / buyout right now so it makes sense that people haven’t been closing deals.
That being said, why is it the deal closing that matters? Would you give more credibility to a tech investor that closed 6 terrible deals in 2021 just bc it was easy to close deals then and everyone wanted to transact? Anyone can close a deal if they’re overpaying for the asset.
Deal experience is critical to moving up in the role (whether at the same firm, lateraling, or post-MBA). Effectively >50% of the learning (and tasks) in private equity come in later stages of a deal, so very few firms will hire someone for senior associate/VP roles without late stage/post-acquisition deal experience. Otherwise, these individuals are managing processes that they've never touched and/or resources (i.e., associates) who have actually seen more aspects of the job than them.
As an MD once told me as an associate, getting to LOI on a deal is like 'inning 3' of the pre-acquisition ballgame (if you incorporate all the follow-on diligence meetings, 3rd party work, legal docs, NWC negotiation, comp packages, etc.), let alone the 4-6 years thereafter of owning the company (assisting with reporting, attending board meetings, doing M&A, etc.).
One addendum - my guidance above assumes a more normal/active market. Given 2022/2023 were fairly quiet for M&A, expectations are reduced (given the pool of upcoming SAs/VPs with deal experience is slimmer), so firms are likely more understanding and accommodating of weaker deal experience.
As a senior professional one a year is the gold standard, but you aren’t going to get pressure before about two years. Depends on the staffing of the firm, but you can extrapolate this to a junior level based on staffing philosophy.
Btw, I closed 3 in 3 years as an Associate, but I would treat this as anecdotal. There is a lot of variability. I know of some who never closed a deal just based on bad luck (i.e got outbid at the end). Honestly, you get 90% of the experience working on a live deal that doesn’t close, so just communicate this if it comes up and describe the work streams you accomplished.
VP here. Been at my current shop for 3 years, mid-market firm.
Closed about 7 deals across new investments, (re)financing and bolt-on since I joined. Should close at least one (if not two) transactions this year. Probably got a bit lucky of ending up with the right people as my peers have closed less than 50% of that. Goes without saying that hours are quite long but so far I have been enjoying it.
Appreciate that some people can be worried about not closing enough deals but bear in mind that it is a marathon, not a sprint. You will have plenty of times.
Add-ons is a bit variable how much work you actually do. Some portcos are pretty much self sufficient in my experience.
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