How sweaty is Stonepeak?
I have heard that they are pretty sweaty but how does it compare to banking? How sweaty are they? Is it consistent 2AM nights and weekend work? Or does that only happen every so often?
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Sweatier than top quartile banking.
Megafund private infrastructure with a particularly aggressive sink or swim culture to boot (forced out founder, a couple of SMD level people past couple years).
Particularly bad, but if you do well there historically have been opportunities for junior people to move up (Though may be a bit trickier now given how young top guys are).
Thank you, this is super helpful. Can you elaborate more on the sink or swim culture? Why was the founder / SMDs forced out?
Some for bad investments, room for co-presidents to ascend throne, substance. Everyone who has been forced out, left very well off though.
Generally is very eat what you kill but also cull very quickly if not producing which is why so sink or swim.
A couple of their top guys / sector heads are 2009-2012 grads.
Echoing the previous comment. Swim or sink and extremely sweaty shop but probably the sharpest people in the industry. They love going into more structured type investments like prefs and convertibles (AA deal most recently). Base assumption is that you should know your deals inside-out given lean team but equally a very political place. Performance is generally good and you will learn a lot but not sure it is a sustainable lifestyle over the long term.
Also confirming that a couple of seniors have been forced out and the most recently the Head of Europe being transitioned into a more chairman type of role. Not entirely sure what it means but from the outside it looks like a weird one. The other SMD leaving, not entirely sure what were the reasons.
Curious what happened to the head of europe
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Do you have examples of 'Stepping out doing deals way outside their circle of competence, and not doing them well' ?
Akumin, Astound / Radiat, Xplornet
Houston office is great, and has the highest returns out of the different verticals they invest
I can share one anecdote: I was at a Christmas party with a buddy who was an Associate at Stonepeak and he showed me an email that the head of HR had sent wishing everyone happy holidays and telling them to make sure and sign off for a bit to spend time with family etc. The CEO replied all to the whole firm like two minutes after the email was sent and said "I won't be signing off." It was Christmas eve lmao.
Someone has to play Santa...
Ha, this is absurd
Bro is a sociopath/psychopath. Great news for returns, bad news for quality of life.
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Mike literally booted his co-founder of 10+ years in a heartbeat at the first sign of perceived weakness. The entire firm draws from Macquarie's lineage of douchery and sharp elbows. It's a brutal culture and as many have flagged, there really aren't that many empty seats to covet given the firm is desperately trying to go public before the infra sector collapses (same can be said for private credit).
Any thoughts on their real estate group?
Bump
Yes
Any insight on the London team? Heard they had quite a bit of a turnover and not sure what deals they have done in Europe
None really. The head guy was a bit of a goober. Likes talking in grandiose buzz words and very little substance. Many of the current Stonepeak MDs are just nepo-cronies from Macquarie who were just fleeing a sinking ship. It's tough to tell how the infra asset class will develop going forward. So much capital has been raised already and very few material exits, even at blue-chip shops like Stonepeak.
Interesting take. I’m curious on why do you think that’s the case? Would they sell to development platforms or could they just finance green fields or build upon old ones?
I saw an Apollo webinar where they’re touting middle market infra as the new asset class but I don’t see how that competes with the Tiger’s of the world with technologies and access to entrepreneurs. I would love to hear your thoughts
Any insight on why the Head of Europe left recently?
He is an idiot and it was clear from the first few months of his hire that he wouldn't be a good fit. Too much infighting at Stonepeak. Literally everyone wants to be CEO or some Chairman or some Co-head. Just look at the senior folks' titles there. Place is insane.
how does one rise to be global co-head of macquarie capital and member of the executive committee by being an idiot?
I feel like there are a lot of ticking time bombs in the stonepeak portfolio. They should have stuck to being an energy fund
Any examples specifically?
Astound (existential for whole franchise), xplore, lineage (prob fine but yikes), rinchem, akumin… idk whole portfolio is sus
Xplornet already went thru LME, Astound debt is trading like it is next. They bought rinchem at wildly inflated prices. akumin is a loan to own. Teekay has had russia issues and is suffering from natural gas price downturn and venture global IPO has been a disaster for them. Lineage down massively from IPO as well. These clowns did a good job riding the wave of rates and infrastructure allocation from LPs for the last ten years but don't see how the game continues. There are so many dogs in there portfolio
I was shocked at what they paid for Forgital and then double shocked by how much leverage they put on it. Talk about capitalizing peak cycle margins on an asset that has never really generated FCF.
Mind sharing ranges if you know? Have been trying to figure it out but no luck so far
interesting that the stonepeak MD that led forgital was previously a partner at apollo. still an MD at stonepeak, but isn't that a step down? why would someone make that move?
can't answer your question but how tf did he make partner in 12 years - the guy must be cracked
Many that have done that within Apollo
That is the typical promotion path
I don’t think there is a meaningful distinction. Historically there have only been 3 titles at Apollo — Aso, Principal and Partner. You can’t compare title names nominally like that where the structures are different. A juniorish Partner at Apo can be equivalent to an MD elsewhere. The guy is relatively young as well, and while there are very young SMDs at Stonepeak, it’s not exactly easy to just walk into the very top of the chain when moving firms, even coming from Apollo - still need to prove yourself.
SMDs coming over have largely been group heads or similar elsewhere. Probably an interesting dynamic with how young Howell, Wyper, Bricker, Roberge, and Thomas are with guys coming over with a lot of experience more junior. That being said its very cut throat / promote for performance both ways so people probably willing to take shots to try to do deals and knock off some of the younger guys.
+1 helpful. Think i’ve read on here from an APO principal that principals get $800-$1mm cash and $5mm+ in carry per year or fund, forget which (gonna assume it was per fund). For him to have been partner he must’ve been earning a significant premium to that - $2mm+ cash and $10-$20mm in carry per fund? Hard to believe an MD role at Stonepeak comps at that level + bought out his expected APO carry - but what do i know
Simple answer that he probably got pushed out
can anyone comment on if there's still upside if you join today as an associate?
Depends on what you mean by upside. Generational wealth? Doubt it. Relatively good comp by mature-ish sweaty PE firm standards? Probably. Curious what others think.
In London, I don’t think so. If you look closely, 90% of their deal flow is outside Europe.
You will learn a lot but if you want deal under your belt if you can secure an offer Stonepeak, I think there are better places.
Echoing one of the comment. In London, probably not. If you look at their deal flow, huge part happens outside Europe so if you want deals under your belt, there are probably better places. Assuming you can secure an offer at Stonepeak, you can definitely get an offer at a much better place from a dealflow perspective.
value-add
Bump
Interesting Forbes article on Stonepeak as it markets its latest funds… obviously no mention of its underperforming investments https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2025/04/08/how-michael-dorrell-became-a-billionaire-making-private-infrastructure-a-safe-haven/
“Stonepeak’s average net IRR across its four flagship funds is 12.4%. Even more impressive: It hasn’t realized a single loss on 46 investments to date.”
Complete bull. Link below has marks from Q3 2024 and things have only gotten worse in their public marks. fund I at 8.4%, fund II at 13.2%, Fund III at 10.9%, fund IV at 8.6%.
https://www.erb.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2024-Q3-NMERB-Infrastructure-Quarterly-Report-Revised.pdf
Don't know what funds Lineage Logistics and Venture Global are in but I am assuming they are drags over the last two quarters so those numbers must be worse for Q1 2025
Both Lineage & Venture Global are in Fund III, last time I checked they had committed $1.1bn for each.
Can't realize a loss if you never divest lmao
In my opinion, this article is just a massive PR exercise with two goals in minds, (i) Dorrell is preparing a (partial) sale of the GP in the future once Fund V is closed and (ii) improving the image with their employees/LPs due to internal issues and/or poor performance on some funds
That being said, both are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
michael dorrell is a con artist - he bought astound, slashed the customer service, raised prices by 50%, and is impossible to cancel their services...i moved out of my old building and i am still being billed because i cannot disconnect.. i will have to sue... i spent over 26 hours of the phone trying to cancel (only to get hung up on every time i mention it).... all their chatbots are AI... really sad... PE is the death of america....
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