IR in-house in Top PE Firm - Thoughts?

Recently accepted position on the IR/Fundraising Team at a top company in PE MF (KKR, BX, etc.), fairly fresh out of undergrad. Firm obviously has really good fundraising history and reputation. Opinions on building career out from here? Ideally, I would like to move over the deal work, but want to use this opportunity, especially at a good firm, to build my ability to pitch to and form relationships with LPs.
Any info on comp progression for IR would be great too

 

IR is an awesome lifestyle job at a top firm, interesting work and you'll do low hours for six-figure pay starting out. Those firms/funds sell themselves, not the same experience at a smaller fund. It's a great spot to build a career especially if you aren't looking for the 80h/week grind.

That said, ability to move into deal work is extremely limited, especially at a MF - smoozing with LPs isn't a huge priority for the deal teams at those firms, the focus is really technical skills (deal modeling) and you ust won't have that skillset. I've seen people move to IR and bounce back to deal side if they have prior banking/PE experience, but next to impossible if you're starting out of college

 

Thanks for the info. What are your thoughts about doing this IR work here for a few years, and then doing an MBA/get CFA then move towards deals? Would that be more possible, especially since MFs like mine tend to send people to good B-schools?

 
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Can't really move into PE from MBA without doing PE pre b-school, even going to M7. IR -> MBA -> IB -> PE is doable, just whether or not you want to do IB for ~2 years at that age. CFA is not at all relevant for IB/PE, if you want to do asset management or ER that's where it becomes useful.

Look, don't get too caught up in the prestige aspect of this website. IR is a really solid career and you have a lot of time to figure out what you want to do. PE does pay more, but you're giving up a lot of your life and time for it. I bet a lot of the older monkeys on here would tell you to stick with a career like IR if you enjoy it, instead of just getting into deals to say you do deals.

 

I also wanted to jump in on this as well. I will be interning for a similar role, with a mix of IR/Fundraising/PM-type work at a top growth equity company (Insight/Summit/GA). Thoughts on that as well, and any considerations I should really think about? It is only an internship, so obviously full-time considerations are possible, but I'm curious your thoughts about working in GE fundraising/PM vs a megafund. In addition, what are the prospects of moving up the ladder?

You also mentioned less pay vs deals. Any numbers on how much they do pay, just out of curiosity?

 

Do you mean portfolio management - like monitoring/back-end stuff? or actual PM like product management

Those are great names and fundraising is a cool job if you like it. Growth equity is a little different strategy, but at any of those 3 names it's the same deal as a MF where the fund/brand more or less sells itself and people are trying to get on your calendar or in your raise, not the other way around. As I keep saying I do think this is a cool/underrated career, easy to move up the ladder and can make good money down the road for a consistent lifestyle gig. If you decide you hate IR and must go to IB/PE down the road, top brand IR -> MBA will get you looks from every IB group on the street.

You should make like $100-130k as an analyst (ballparking here, lots of variation), with progression towards $175-200k at associate and hitting mid-6 at director and above

 

PM more as in portfolio management-y type stuff, since our team seems to have some people on PM and others more on distribution/traveling to meet with LPs. 

I'm gonna drop a similar question as I asked someone below, but I suppose this is a bit naive/pipe dream but my goal was always to start/help lead a fund with friends/peers or myself. Think part of the reason I'm so worried isn't as much prestige, and way more just setting myself up to be in a position to pursue that goal and make something impactful. Would an IR skillset help achieve that? Sorry if the question is kinda out of the blue. Thanks!

 

As everyone has said, IR can be a great role, good pay, generally fewer hours, ability to travel (assuming that early in your career you'll enjoy that), and a useful role, especially once you really get to understanding the LP community. With that said, pretty much zero chance you're going to lateral into an investing role anywhere, even at a LMM fund. IR is just a completely different job from being on a deal team and you'll never build up the skills required to be successful on that side.

If you really want to break into PE, I'd do a year or two in your current role, but keep an eye out for investment banking roles, switch over to being a banking analyst in a year or so (MBB consulting also works, but banking is probably easier), do the traditional banking cycle and then lateral into PE, potentially back into the same firm that you're currently employed with. 

There's nothing wrong with wanting to make it into PE, but your role isn't as direct of a stepping stone as you think.

One last random thing, being articulate, sales oriented, and able to give a good pitch is a vital business skill. Everything ultimately boils down to sales of some shape/form. Use the next couple of years to really work on that skill and if you decide to want to develop another skill after that, go do banking or whatever else it is you want to learn. 

 

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