How would you rank these funds for Real Estate PE?
Oaktree, Bain Capital, Brookfield, Centerbridge, KKR
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All tier 1 firms so dependent on fit. Work at a similar firm and interviewed at a couple of these. Interested if anyone has comp for any of these. A few insights below. Would probably say in terms of associate recruitment preferences, Bain is probably below the rest of these. All hire predominantly bankers; a couple of them take analysts as well.
Brookfield: Top 3 size wise with BX and Starwood. Invest across every sector including corporate deals (Watermark, GGP, etc.) Have a lot of investments where they’re way out of the money; specifically office and malls. Started hiring from the on cycle banker pool a few years ago
KKR: Investing out of $4B+ equity fund from a few years ago. Likely to scale much more just given brand name. Have done corporate deals such as CyrusOne and built a number of platforms across sectors. Write large checks along with Brookfield
Oaktree: Less thematic, and more market driven investing. Investing out of $4.7B fund and raising $5-6B global fund. Do a lot of debt and structured deals out of equity fund given Oaktree’a history. MM strategy where they write a lot of $50M checks (volume shop). Sharp team; majority of team is in LA HQ (small team in NY as well). 3-year associate program ($300K+ associate 1 comp) with strong VP conversion
Centerbridge: Small team (don’t hire associates every year). Raised second RE fund at $2.3B. Comp anecdotally top of street. Largely corporate deals (Great Wolf, Suntex, INDUS) and more thematic investors focused on platforms
Bain: Boston based with platforms / JVs across sectors. Thematic investors. Hire a lot of associates (5-7+ per year). Pull a lot from Mid-Low BB REGL groups (Wells, Jefferies, etc. some Citi). Don’t do corporate deals under RE arm. Would say preference wise, they’re a notch below the rest
largely accurate. one note is cyrusone was done out of kkr infra and not kkr repe.
thanks. How was the interview process like? Did you do on-cycle or off?
Also if you mind saying -- what is the comp at your fund?
All great shops but to add to the above, KKR's digital infra/data center investments are done entirely out of the infra fund. KKR's real estate team has a much narrower mandate than the other shops listed here being primarily focused on core food groups like apts, industrial, etc. Centerbridge is a strong team but also the outlier in terms of size with the smallest platform/fund. Bain's real estate team is run by the former head of their corporate consumer PE practice.
Pay at any of the larger shops (Brookfield, KKR, Bain, etc) at Associate 1 level should be ~$300k+ (comped within ballpark of corporate PE peers).
What are your thoughts on Starwood / any perspective on them?
Personally, from my own interview experience & talking to people,
KKR > Centerbridge / Oaktree > Bain Cap > Brookfield
could you elaborate?
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