is there a way to do PE without weekends?
Just joined a MM fund. Got sold on culture and "we're not like banking". Honestly, it's slightly better but pretty similar. I'm fine working 9-12AM or 2AM Monday-Thursday and until 7PM on Friday, feel like that's priced in and I want to get reps / learn. Basically like 70-80 hours M-F.
But seriously, is there a way to do this job or this industry without working on the weekends? I can't f*cking stand working on the weekend. Every weekend there is some new bullsh*t where people need to see it Monday.
Maybe I need to change my expectations and get used to this.
There are many LMM firms and family offices that run ~50-60 hours M-F, practically no weekend work (occasionally on live deals). You need to sift through the BS and find the gems
Not if you're trying to win or preempt a competitive process above LMM. Time is the great deal killer and difference-maker. My fund's won multiple deals because we were able to go from meeting a founder/CEO and getting them an offer within 48hrs, pushed to get terms hammered out over the following week, then close inside of 30 days making the process as painless as possible. Of these are companies we knew were good, had good records/data on hand, and didn't require a crazy amount of diligence (this obviously doesn't work the same for distressed or operationally intensive-companies). Speed matters.
Would not trust you as a founder sending an offer in 48 hours 😂
Lol w/e you say, I'll take my closing checks over some commercial real estate analyst's opinion. It really doesn't take long after looking at a company's financials and doing a quick data request w/ bankers to fill in any gaps for you to know whether or not you like a company. You can always revise the valuation/terms later if you discover something in DD that changes things but IMO it's better to get a locked in LOI to show conviction to the seller than meander around giving other funds the opportunity. Negotiating on terms when other teams haven't even gotten their offers in yet seems preferable. To each their own, but I'd rather not drag it out when I have half a dozen other processes on my plate + regular sourcing to manage. The sooner a deal get's done the sooner I get paid.
The main question was about not working weekends and frankly I don't think you deserve to get paid highly if you DON'T. All the people I know across high paying careers where they are working for someone else work weekends whether it be sales, quants, HFs, etc. You get paid more as an employee because you're working more and/or doing things other people won't.
"Authored by: Certified Real Estate Professional - 2nd Year Analyst" alright buddy
Making an offer within 48 hours is the most LMM thing I’ve ever heard
Granted these aren't PE but there's a bunch of examples of tech deals with a sub-1 week timeline (only knew a 3rd of these off the top, rest from ChatGPT):
Speed is a huge advantage to getting a deal done if you don't want to risk a competitive process. If it weren't then the big publics wouldn't be doing it and instead would put everything through GS, Qatalyst, etc. I can't imagine the same principle wouldn't hold true for PE making an offer if they already know the company is a good target. It's easy to back out during DD if something's wrong and shows conviction from the seller's POV. From personal experience, nothing is more frustrating than having PE drag their feet for weeks wasting time just to give us a no that could've been figured out after a few conversions.
Lower hours will come with lower comp. Recently thought about joining a LMM firm that pulls 50-60 hours, but couldn’t take such a large pay cut
what’s comp like at a place like this for coming in as an associate
140-150k all in
Depends on the shop ofc, but I probably average 40-50 (rarely work weekends) and I’ll take in $200-250k this year depending on the bonus. Fund has less than $200M AUM. Downside is also very limited upward mobility.
Short answer not really. Obviously it can vary by firm / situation and there are some good sweet spots out there (hope you can find them). But weekends are a part of the industry. Lines between work and personal are completely blurred in my experience.
"Lines between work and personal are completely blurred in my experience" could not be more accurate. They would never say this outright, but the majority of seniors equate your compensation with their ability to email or message you at all times. Nights and weekends, typically accompanied with unreasonable expectations to turn some type of work product around (i.e., slides, analysis, model, etc.)
No, just go corporate. Why do you guys make this so complicated.
That's what I'm saying. Get out of finance if you don't like the hours lol. Strategy is where it's at for balance.
Or working biz dev at PE port co's.
Get a lot of the pro's around PE without killing yourself.
I don't think you can pull it off in direct PE, but fund of funds / co-investment maybe. I look at the folks working at my UMM fund now and the top performers who stand a chance at promo are all at least a bit online on the weekends.
Rarely work weekends at my LMM (~$1bn latest fund). Same at my prior firm. Just have to find places with a decent culture
curious - how can you DD this upon the interview stage?
The simple answer is no, there isn’t.
The way you solve it is to go to a less competitive (ie less lucrative) career path.
Your coworkers think it’s worth working weekends because if they can convert the projects you’re spending your weekend time on, it will mint very lucrative carry and pave their longer term careers, which is worth 10s of millions of dollars.
So a little bit of weekend work in pursuit of that end is a no brainer. Can it wait until Monday? The rest of the market isn’t waiting until Monday, so the short answer is no. Every day you’re taking off, is a day everyone else in the market is getting further ahead of you.
That’s the mentality.
If you really hate it that much than it’s great you know that about yourself. Most kids just grit their teeth and dont even think about what they want / don’t want.
The answer could be to move to something else, like co-investor team at a SWF, fund of funds, investor relations or something less intense with a lower octane performance culture.
I can tell you that it won’t be within a traditional PE investing role. Any investing team that’s not operating at that intensity is likely getting smoked in a very competitive market and they wont be around for long. I know people at MF, UMM, MM, LMM, search funds, HFs, etc they are all getting after it and if you’re not pushing plus/minus 10% as hard as they are, you have no shot.
So you would need to go to a different function to get the better lifestyle without working for a B- team / organization.
Agreed, but there are nuances here which I'm sure you'll agree with (and to be clear, no MS from me).
As an MF VP, I fully understand and expect that weekend work comes with the territory. That said, one of the easiest ways some partners and MDs burn out their junior resources is by treating them purely as execution machines rather than professionals with long-term value. Yes, I’m being compensated $600K–$700K to be available almost 24/7, but when a neurotic partner or an overzealous director unnecessarily derails my weekend for projects that aren’t worth tens of millions of dollars, that’s when they lose goodwill and create unnecessary churn among junior and mid-level folks.
Of course, this exists on a spectrum. Some firms, like Apollo, are notorious for treating juniors as interchangeable cogs, while certain UMM and MM firms tend to be slightly more balanced. The reality is that intensity is required in PE, but there’s also a huge EQ component that gets overlooked. There’s a difference between working hard to create value and just working for the sake of working something that happens far too often in this industry (covering the entire spectrum from LMM to MF).
xx
You have literally no idea what you’re talking about. If you’re partner track at a lower middle market firm with half decent performance, you will easily make 10s of millions of dollars.
Weren’t you just asking about whether you’ll fail your incoming PE Associate background checks because you got canned from your banking job?
Now suddenly you’re the authoritative source on PE Partner lifetime earnings?
Operate in the MM / LMM space after BB IB and while the weekends/ late nights I work are very small compared to MF friends, they still exist in a deal crunch because there is an urgency to win/get comfort. The appeal on my end is even as an Associate, I am guaranteed sizeable deal-by-carry so have a personal motivation.
If at MF/UMM, it is tougher but have to remind yourself the cruel hours are the payments to the firm for very high cash comp + long-term career optionality denoted by a blue-chip CV. If that isn't sufficiently appealing after ASO years, have to make a personal decision
These comments are hilarious. Mid-level PE professionals thinking that working weekends is the key to strong returns—what a joke. Running 10 extra models or finishing a diligence pack two days earlier makes almost no difference.
OP, you’ve got your answer—weekend-free PE doesn’t exist because the industry is full of people like the ones in this thread.
No cool guy, free weekends don’t exist because your firm is paying you $300,000 to be available 6-7 days a week when asked. You’re getting paid to work 6-7 days, you want to only show up 5. Either show up to work or take less money such that the expectations are different. Not rocket science.
It’s a competitive market and the Principal or MD isn’t going to forgo his Associate doing work on a deal that could make him literally millions of dollars because you want to finger your roommate’s butthole on a Saturday instead of doing what you get paid $300,000 to do. You maybe do a deal a year. You have a shot on goal and want to sit on your hands and miss it for what, so some pissant on WSO doesn’t get a callused hands?
It’s as simple as that. No one thinks they’re getting blockbuster returns by doing the bare minimum. You have to do work to get to the answer. If you don’t do the work or you’re too slow in doing it, then someone else gets to the answer before you. It’s called a market. Go look it up on TikTok.
You're a weirdo. I'm sure you make good money, but that'll never make up for being the loser you are. Touch grass.
You're a perfect example of the point I'm making—a miserable, lonely individual deeply entrenched in the fallacies of this industry. And in turn you'll make sure your juniors will be just as pitful as you.
An associate's actions have no real impact on returns. Those are determined by strategic, high-level decisions made by senior professionals. If you don't understand that by now, I'm not sure what to tell you.
So much hate despite being so right. Shame. The mediocrity that's seeped into this industry is embarrassing.
Enough gigs these days that pay $300k for 4 days.
Best response on the thread. And nothing you do will change such prevailing behaviors so better move on to the dozen other finance functions that'll compensate you very well for far less work. Oh wait then you won't have the "prestige" of working in PE...the horror.
Agree, there have been some brutalll responses from “Principal in PE”. Pretty much exactly what drives there to be unavoidable weekend work in the industry. It will never change. He seems like a fun guy.
I tend to overhear finance bros on my commute from the burbs to NYC (think LIRR / NJ Path train etc.).
Only guys taking work calls / talking about models or due diligence reports on a late Friday train ride are them. Everyone else is zoned out.
I guess the trade off is worth it though. Handful of these guys look younger than 40 and have million dollar homes + nice cars.
Childhood helps run his family office (~2-3 HNW families, with his family having ~30-50% stake) and he's always working weekends. I don't know a single buyside person who doesn't work weekends honestly. Some relative lifestyle funds out there but these guys still pull 55-60 hour weeks with the flexibility of having to pick up some work on weekends.
At a successful fund, some weekend work is unavoidable. The market is way too competitive and the amount of money at stake is too high to avoid weekend work completely. However, some funds with decent cultures and established processes that minimize wasted work (though impossible to get rid of completely) can reduce the # of weekends worked of their associates.
I'm at what would fall under a pretty grindy shop, consistent Midnight/1ams Mon-Thurs throughout the year, Friday's usually 7/8ish. Weekend work is pretty hit or miss, Seniors are generally good about giving us at least somewhat of a life so weekend work is minimized for the most part. Some weekends its zero or a few emails here and there, some weekends is 5-8 hours, then deal crunches all bets are off obviously.
All I see in here is you have to work 80 hours a week because everyone else does because it's so competitive to get deals done. Does this not mean returns will compress since everyone is bidding for the same companies, thus paying way too much? I'll hang up and listen.
Y’all are cooking. Keep it going chef
Nope
It's possible to get close, but likely cannot eliminate completely. I'm at a firm where latest fund is ~$4B and weekend work is rare outside of deal sprints. Usually 1-2 hours most weekends. Likely 3-5 hours for associates and scales down over time. Weeks are usually 50-60 hours at the VP-level and ~65-75 for associates - all outside of deal sprints.
Is possible. I am at a €2bn fund with no weekends. I am based in Europe though, so maybe not that of a hardo culture here
I think the only way it's possible is if your firm is light touch on portco work. A buddy of mine told me he only interacts with his management teams on finance calls and at board meetings. Contrast that with my shop (latest fund $5B) where I'm up our CFOs asses 24/7 and in return they treat me like an extension of their team. Any time they need any kind of analysis that's even remotely complicated, it gets outsourced to me by default. Unless I'm in the thick of second round diligence, I'm doing probably 60+ hours per week of portco work alone.
Never-ending, thankless Portco work. The silent killer of young, starry-eyed PE associates.
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