Is Search Fund Experience Valuable?
How is Search Fund internship experience looked by Investment banks and Private equity firms? I have work on a few lbo models, build three statement models, work with brokers for finding deals and evaluating CIMs.
It will be directly applicable to lower market PE firms ($250M funds) as well as family offices. It's definitely good experience and will be helpful in any interview process even for a larger PE shop.
Thank you for the feedback. The Search Fund experience also has an element of entrepreneurship/ Start-upy as we are given the criteria of what to look for by the investors but is up to us to become creative in the search process. Thus, the job is less structure and requires a lot of creativity. Is this an appealing aspect that I should talk about in PE interviews?
If you actually managed to source deals or were involved in a meaningful way, it clearly would make a strong statement about your maturity and ability
It was monumental for me.
Coming from a non-target it was by far my best experience. I was able to get my hands on some DCF modelling. I was able to show leadership and initiative. Interviewers were all impressed by it and it was BY FAR the biggest contributor to me earning my next internship in a good place.
Infinitely better than some corporate finance or insurance/financial advising internship in my opinion.
Echoing others - very valuable, especially at the FR/SO years. I interned at a search fund and coming from a non-target and engineering background, I was able to land several interviews with IBs and a couple of VC firms for entry-level/analyst positions. I was able to reference this experience as something that inspired my desire to pursue a career in finance.
Could you elaborate on how you worded the search fund experience on your resume? Was it very general? Or did you get into specifics? Any info would be helpful as I am currently interning and I am about to start looking for future opportunities
How good of experience is working at a search fund with regards to 2019 SA recruiting? (Originally Posted: 03/06/2018)
I think I'm very close to receiving an offer to work at what is essentially a very large search fund this summer as a sophomore, unpaid. Their target size is basically under $70M, which I feel squarely puts them into the realm of MM PE, and they are majority owned by an actual MM PE firm. However, they are actually just a search fund and trying to buy only a single company. They are also very close to the end of the fund lifecycle as well, and so I think that I would be doing a lot more significant work than just sourcing.
How good of a position would this put me in for a 2019 IB SA recruiting? I'm at a top public(UVA, UM, UCB) It's fairly relevant, and I probably wouldn't be doing much sourcing. I am still trying to search for that elusive sophomore IB internship, but chances are fairly slim I think. Would it be a stretch to call the fund just MM PE?
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