How much time are you spending on new deals vs portfolio work?

Associates at my firm spend 90%+ of their time on portfolio value creation work. Running random analyses to share either management of underperforming portcos. Is this common? Is anyone else spending an inordinate amount of time on portco work and barely any time on new deals?

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I recently (voluntarily) left a well-known “operational” MM PE firm and this was exactly the case. Everyone completely crushed doing the exact portco work you’re describing. Chicken with head cut off. No maningnful time for new deals, unless you carve out bonus/magic time on top of never-ending baseline of portco. Requires Herculean effort.

 
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Currently spending my time 75% on portcos vs. 25% on new deals in LMM PE (I'm including M&A add-ons for existing portcos as part of new deals here).

With the exception of M&A add-ons or prepping for an exit, every time I've had to spend a bunch of time on a portco was when that portco was struggling/underperforming. Definitely not fun.

I've never had to spend significant time on a portco that was performing well. Portco work is really draining and sucks when most of the firm's portfolio is struggling (understand why people like above leave their firms and am actively looking to leave mine as well). Makes me miss/consider going back to IB

 

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