How much admin/boring work are you doing in PE?
Question says it all. Things that I would put in that category are, for example:
- Managing Q&A (e.g. sending XLS trackers back and forth)
- Scheduling all sorts of calls with our DD advisors or the sell-side
- Coordinating work of our DD advisors or other team members (e.g. asking for updates, updating seniors)
- Keeping track of legal docs (e.g. staying on top of versions, relaying proposed changes)
- Turning comments on IC materials
- Internal compliance/”deal checklist” stuff
Some days this takes up like 90% of my capacity, especially on live deals. Was wondering if this a common experience for PE Associates/VPs?
Turning IC comments is not admin/boring work...
Fair enough. I don't mean meaningful comments like adding analyses, but rather formatting/polishing wording and the general process of coordinating long comment lists across multiple people.
quite common here... so tend to think some people are right in the sense that pe is just an extension of ib and a more glorified secretary. unless you can bring it your deals from your own network, typically got to go through the grind and up the ladder
This is the reason why I left the deal side
Leading the third parties is admin work in your book? You would outsource that to an admin?
A lot of these are confusing admin work with just execution, and some of them are confusing admin work with actual strategic value add.
PE Associates are nothing more than admin / PMO types that happen to know accounting, valuation, and the required project management to get a deal done...
I’m surprised people really think PE is banking 2.0 or “simple admin” work at the Associate level. Maybe it’s just my firm, but there is a lot of thought that goes into the analysis whether that be on a model, QoE, market study, etc. I can’t just push things along without the understanding drivers or having an informed opinion on the value opportunities…
:(
Sorry, maybe my wording is misleading - with "admin" I don't mean things my PA/admin would take care of. Instead, I mean project management tasks that may be important for execution but don't really advance my understanding of the company or directly advance our investigation of whether we should do the deal.
Of course - Q&A is an important part of DD and so are calls where we speak to our advisors. At the same time, I'd say spending two hours reconciling four different XLS Q&A trackers and following up on missing answers is hardly why anyone would want to go into PE :)
This is what I call bullsh*t admin. Things that don't teach you to be a good investor. Q&A / DD is 'admin' but it helps hone your skills. So I agree with your nuance.
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